What of Confucius - Written Evidence
It has long been recognized that the traditions about Confucius, which are accepted even by many scholars, are of questionable accuracy. More than eleven hundred years ago one of the most famous of Confucians, Han Yii, complained that his contemporaries repeated the most utter nonsense about Confucius. Thus, He asked, if one wishes to learn the truth, "from whom can he seek it?"
Almost every account of Confucius is based upon the biography included in the Historical Records, which was written around 100 B.C. Indeed, a Western scholar has written that it "will form the basis of the biographies of Confucius for all time." Yet at the beginning of the nineteenth century the great critic Ts'ui Shu pointed out that in fact this biography is, as he pungently put it, "seventy or eighty per cent slander." A Chinese scholar of our own day, who has studied this problem exhaustively, asserts that the biography contained in the Historical Records is so "utterly confused and disordered" that it could not have been written, in its present form, by its supposed author. Nevertheless, this is the foundation upon which are erected accounts of the sage that we are asked to believe.
If we are to arrive at something closer to the truth, we must approach the problem from a new direction. Since the only full accounts of Confucius that exist were written centuries after his death, it is customary to begin with them, but to seek to eliminate from them that which appears legendary or improbable. After this has been done, however, we have no assurance whatever that what remains is the truth. Once a man has become, as Confucius became, the hero of a culture, his name is used in countless stories that are based far more upon the beliefs and aspirations of those who tell them than upon any actual events of his life.
Let us consider an example from Christian tradition. Most of the early Christians were, as Paul has reminded us, humble folk, often despised and persecuted. When their children were mistreated by their playfellows, some of them consoled themselves with the thought that the boy Jesus, with his divine powers, could not have been so used with impunity. Thus in two of the Apocryphal Gospels it is related that when other children offended the young Jesus he used his supernatural powers to strike them dead on the spot.
How should we interpret these stories, as history? Should we say that they are exaggerated and reduce the number of children killed-to one? Shall we eliminate the supernatural element and say that this child was killed by purely natural means? Shall we go further and say that Jesus did not intentionally kill a child at all, but that this incident is no doubt based upon the fact that he had killed one accidentally? Obviously, all these suppositions are nonsense. And the more we alter the stories, trying to make them credible, the less chance we have of understanding their origin at all. For they grew out of the daydreams of miserable and oppressed people, and as such they have meaning and considerable historical value. But if we try to derive facts about the life of Jesus from such tales, we shall be misled, for they have almost nothing to do with Jesus at all.
No more do most of the stories about Confucius have anything to do with him. If we place them in their setting and study them carefully, they will tell us a great deal about the people of the period in which they originated, whether the Han dynasty or another. But it is quite hopeless to take the mass of legend about Confucius, as it existed when he had been dead for three centuries and more, and try to sort out the truth. It is too utterly confused, and there is no satisfactory standard by which the true may be distinguished from the false.
Instead, we shall try to find the real Confucius by means of two other kinds of material. First, while we shall not ignore the traditions that have been current in relatively recent times, we shall regard them as of secondary value, and shall place our chief reliance on records about Confucius that were written down as near to his own time as possible. We shall take as our basic materials books written within two centuries of his death. Second, we shall pay careful attention, as regards each major point, to the works that describe the situation which existed before the time of Confucius.
The importance of studying the pre-Confucian materials is sometimes overlooked. But if we are really to understand what sort of person Confucius was, it is essential. To use a modem example, it means little to say that John Smith advocated a forty-eight-hour working week unless we know under what circumstances he did so. If he did it in the middle of the twentieth century, in one of those countries where a forty-hour week is regarded by many people as standard, then he was proposing to lengthen the week and was what some would call a "reactionary." But if he did it under the conditions prevailing in many countries at the beginning of the nineteenth century, he was advocating a drastic shortening of the week and would certainly at the time have been called a "dangerous radical."
Similarly, there is little significance to the fact that Confucius said that one of his disciples might properly occupy the position of a ruler, unless we know all of the circumstances; but when we do, it is very important. For this disciple was not the heir of a ruler, and it was even intimated that his heredity was in some manner tainted. That Confucius nevertheless said that he might properly occupy a throne, because of his virtue and abilities, would have been a commonplace in Han times. But in the literature and bronze inscriptions dating from any time earlier than that of Confucius, inheritance seems to have been the only claim to such a place that was ever considered. In the light of this fact it is clear that Confucius' remark was not a casual compliment, but the statement of a revolutionary political principle of the greatest importance.
For our picture of pre-Confucian China we shall draw upon the classic known as the Book of Poetry, the genuinely early portions of the Book of Changes and the Book of History* the Spring and Autumn Annals, and inscriptions cast on bronze vessels that have come down to us. We shall also make use of the historical work known as the Tso Chuan, but since it does not seem to have been written in anything like its present form until around 300 B.C., it must be utilized with considerable caution.
For the foundation of our understanding of the life and thought of Confucius we shall use the Analects. This book consists chiefly of sayings of Confucius and his disciples. Not all of it is genuine, but those portions that have been added later often betray themselves in several ways at once. Not infrequently they differ so greatly from the genuinely early sections in style, in vocabulary, and in ideas simultaneously that there is no question that they are false. Many scholars have worked on these problems; their results are summarized and the authenticity of various portions of the Analects is discussed in detail in the Appendix.
The book named after the philosopher Mo Tzu makes some mention of Confucius. At first glance it would seem that it should be a good source since Mo Tzu lived immediately after Confucius; unfortunately, however, as critics have pointed out, most of the discussion of Confucius personally is found in passages that are obviously late additions to the Mo Tzu. The book called Mencius is, on the other hand, a very valuable source. The Confucian philosopher Mencius was bom about a century after Confucius died. The work that bears his name records the tradition about Confucius in some detail and in a very early form, which is in general quite similar to that found in the early portions of the Analects. The Tso Chuan records, in much detail, the history of Confucius' native state during the period of his lifetime. On the whole, however, it tells us remarkably little about the life of Confucius. This is one of the many facts which make it clear that in reality Confucius was not, in his lifetime, the important political figure that later tradition has represented him. The Tso Chuan also contains some Stories about Confucius that disagree with the earlier accounts and in some cases even involve the weird or supernatural. Since this is true, and since the Tso Chuan was not written in its present form until around 300 B.C., only a part of what it has to say about Confucius can be accepted as trustworthy. This part, however, is valuable in helping to fill out the picture.
Works written after Confucius had been dead for centuries give much more detailed information about him than those written near his lifetime. This is the reverse of what we should expect, and it is clear that much of the added information was derived from imagination rather than from knowledge. We shall look at a number of these later works when we come to examine the growth of the Confucian legend.
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Confucius - China Tradition and Truth
Confucius - China Tradition and Truth
Twenty-five hundred years ago there was born in China a child Whose life was to influence human history as few have done. Tradition says that he came of noble ancestry and was the descendant of kings. At his birth, it is related, dragons and "spirit maidens" hovered in the air. But Confucius himself said, "When young, I was without rank and in humble circumstances."
Tradition paints him as a strict pedant, laying down precise inks for men to follow in their conduct and their thinking. The truth is that he carefully avoided laying down rules, because he believed that no creed formulated by another person can excuse any man from the duty of thinking for himself.
He is often called a reactionary, whose primary aim was to restore the ways of antiquity and to bolster the authority of the hereditary aristocracy. In fact, he advocated and helped to bring about such sweeping social and political reforms that he must counted among the great revolutionaries. Within a few centuries after his death hereditary aristocracy had virtually ceased to exist in China, and Confucius had contributed more than any other man to its destruction.
As a young man he had to earn his living at tasks that bordered on the menial. From this he gained, and never lost, a deep sympathy for the common people. Their problems and sufferings were many. Centralized government had broken down. The feudal lords acknowledged only nominal allegiance to the king. Yet they could not be called independent, for some of them were no more than puppets in the hands of their own swashbuckling underlings. Public and private wars raged unchecked. There was very little law and order save what each man could enforce by his own right arm, his armed followers, or his powers of intrigue. Even the greatest noble could not be sure that he would not be ruined and perhaps assassinated. The position of the common people was tragic. Whoever won the wars, they lost. Even when there was peace they had no security, for they had no power. They were virtual pawns of the aristocrats, whose principal interests had come to be hunting, war, and extravagant living. To pay for these pastimes they taxed the people beyond what the traffic could bear, and suppressed all protest ruthlessly.
To the young Confucius these conditions seemed intolerable, and he resolved to devote his life to trying to right them. He talked to others about the way in which the world might be made a better place to live in. Gradually he gathered about himself a group of young men to study his doctrines, and so he became known as a teacher.
The essentials of his teaching were simple. Everywhere about him he saw men struggling against each other, but he refused to believe that that was the natural state of society. He thought it was normal for men to cooperate; to strive, not to get the better of each other, but to promote the common welfare. In his opinion a ruler's success should be measured by his ability, not to amass wealth and power for himself, but to bring about the welfare and happiness of his people.
Confucius realized that the world of which he dreamed would never exist so long as the kind of rulers who occupied the thrones were directing government. There is reason to believe that if it had been possible he would gladly have dispensed with hereditary rulers, but that was out of the question. Instead, he tried to persuade the rulers to turn over their administrative functions to ministers who were virtuous, capable, and properly trained. He tried to educate young men to be such ministers. For such education he accepted the poor and humble on exactly the same basis as the rich and well born. He demanded only two qualifications: intelligence and industry.
He was trying to produce a bloodless revolution. He wanted to take the actual power from rulers who inherited thrones and give it to ministers chosen on the basis of merit, and to change the aim of government from the aggrandizement of a few to the welfare and happiness of the whole people. He knew that mere intellectual conviction is not enough for revolution, and he I tried to kindle in his disciples a veritable passion for the cause to which his life was dedicated. In this he had a large measure of success. This group of "Knights of the Way" (to borrow Arthur Waley's felicitous phrase) was inspired by a measure of devotion not less than that later found in Christian chivalry.
Yet for Confucius it was not enough to be a teacher. He Wanted to direct the government of a state and to see the world of which he dreamed come to life under his hand. It is clear, however, that the rulers of the day cannot have seriously considered putting real power into his hands. At best they must have thought him a harmless eccentric, but one who could be-come dangerous if given power. They did, however, give rather high posts to some of his disciples. It was doubtless at the insitence of these students that Confucius was finally given an . in his native state of Lu, that carried a respectable title But probably involved no real authority.
When he saw that he could accomplish nothing he resigned his post, and set off on travels which took him to a number of states, in search of a ruler who would use his Way. He never found one. These journeyings lasted a decade or more. They accomplished little, but they did prove that he was willing to
undergo great hardship and abuse for his principles. Returning to Lu he resumed his teaching. Five years later he died. His life had had about it very little of the dramatic. There was. no climax and no martyrdom. None of his chief ambitions had been fulfilled. There is little doubt that when he died everyone considered him a failure. Certainly he himself did.
After his death, as his teachings were handed down from one generation of disciples to another, the Confucian group gradually grew in size and influence. The doctrine was changed and elaborated until Confucius himself would scarcely have recognized it, yet two principles remained: the insistence that those who govern should be chosen not for their birth but for their virtue and ability, and that the true end of government is the welfare and happiness of the people. This latter principle made Confucianism popular with the common people, as war and oppression increased and life became more and more difficult.
In 221 b.c. the relatively barbarous state of Ch'in overran China and converted it into a totalitarian empire. The Confucians refused to collaborate. Circulation of their books and teachings was forbidden, and some of them were put to death. Within less than two decades Ch'in was destroyed by a revolution in which the Confucians took a prominent part.
The Han dynasty, which succeeded, was on the whole much more favorable to the Confucians. A number of them came into conflict, however, with its sixth emperor, Wu, who had totalitarian ambitions. He was far too clever to oppose Confucianism openly; instead he posed as its patron and subsidized it. By putting large numbers of Confucians on the government payroll, and personally manipulating the examinations by which officials were beginning to be selected, he exercised considerable influence over the development of Confucian doctrine. From about this time there dates the misuse of Confucianism to justify despotism. This was a perversion of everything that Confucius stood for, against which enlightened and courageous Confucians have never ceased to protest.
Most of the information about Confucius that is current today derives from the Han period or later. This is true of his biography and of those commentaries that seek to put flesh and blood on the dry bones of the classical books. Confucius was scarcely dead before the embroidering of traditions about him began. It seemed unthinkable that one whose ideas were so important could have been unappreciated in his own day; his biography was so written as to make him a powerful statesman. Rival schools of thought at first attacked and ridiculed him; later, they adopted him. Even the totalitarian Legalists converted Confucius to totalitarianism. Most effective of all, they put totalitarian sentiments into his mouth, in passages written into the most venerated scriptures of Confucianism.
All this was useful to those who found the democratic sentiments of Confucius embarrassing and wished to represent him as a supporter of unlimited imperial authority. They needed only to stress these false additions to his supposed sayings, to interpret others, and to forget the rest. Thus they built up a facade behind which it has been very hard, for two thousand years, to find the real Confucius.
There were almost always a few scholars, however, who were capable of discernment. So were a number of the Jesuit missionaries who entered China and became scholars and even officials at the Chinese court in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They brushed aside as so much chaff the accumulation of recent interpretation, and sought to go back to Confucius himself. In letter after letter to Europe they told of the wonderful new philosopher they had discovered.
Thus Confucius became known to Europe just at the beginning of the philosophic movement known as the Enlightenment. A large number of philosophers, including Leibniz, Wolff, and Voltaire, as well as statesmen and men of letters, used his name .ind his ideas to further their arguments, and they themselves were influenced in the process. Both in France and in England the fact that China, under the impulsion of Confucianism, had long since virtually abolished hereditary aristocracy, was used as a weapon in the attack on hereditary privilege. The philosophy of Confucius played a role of some importance in the development of democratic ideals in Europe and in the background of the French Revolution. Through French thought it indirectly influenced the development of democracy in America. It is of Interest that Thomas Jefferson proposed, as "the key-stone of the arch of our government," an educational system that shows remarkable similarities to the Chinese examination system. The extent to which Confucianism contributed to the development of Western democracy is often forgotten, for rather curious reasons that we must examine in their proper place.
In China the story was similar. Confucius was an important intellectual ancestor of the Chinese Revolution. Sun Yat-sen declared that "both Confucius and Mencius were exponents of democracy," and gave to the Republic of China a constitution that bears the deep impress of Confucian principles. Yet some of his countrymen today think of Confucius as a reactionary who helped to forge the chains of despotism, and regard him with hostility or indifference.
In a book concerned only with Europe, W. E. H. Lecky wrote a description that applies to Confucius with remarkable aptness:
There arise from time to time men who bear to the moral condition of their age much the same relations as men of genius bear to its intellectual condition. They anticipate the moral standard of a later age, cast abroad conceptions of disinterested virtue, of philanthropy, or of self-denial that seem to have no relation to the spirit of their time, inculcate duties and suggest motives of action that appear to most men altogether chimerical. Yet the magnetism of their perfection tells powerfully upon their contemporaries. An enthusiasm is kindled, a group of adherents is formed, and many are emancipated from the moral condition of their age. Yet the full effects of such a movement are but transient. The first enthusiasm dies away, surrounding circumstances resume their ascendancy, the pure faith is materialised, encrusted with conceptions that are alien to its nature, dislocated, and distorted, till its first features have almost disappeared. The moral teaching, being unsuited to the time, becomes inoperative until its appropriate civilization has dawned; or at most it faintly and imperfectly filters through an accumulation of dogmas, and thus accelerates in some measure the arrival of the condition it requires.*
All of this is true of Confucius. It helps to explain why, as he himself said, no one fully understood him even in his own day, and why later generations have often seriously misunderstood him. It helps to explain the fact that this man, who lived so long ago and was so obscure in his lifetime, left behind him an influence that continues to affect men's thoughts and actions even in our own day.
Author: H.G CREEL - Confucius and the Chinese Way
Related Document(s)
Three Religions Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism
...Read more!
Twenty-five hundred years ago there was born in China a child Whose life was to influence human history as few have done. Tradition says that he came of noble ancestry and was the descendant of kings. At his birth, it is related, dragons and "spirit maidens" hovered in the air. But Confucius himself said, "When young, I was without rank and in humble circumstances."
Tradition paints him as a strict pedant, laying down precise inks for men to follow in their conduct and their thinking. The truth is that he carefully avoided laying down rules, because he believed that no creed formulated by another person can excuse any man from the duty of thinking for himself.
He is often called a reactionary, whose primary aim was to restore the ways of antiquity and to bolster the authority of the hereditary aristocracy. In fact, he advocated and helped to bring about such sweeping social and political reforms that he must counted among the great revolutionaries. Within a few centuries after his death hereditary aristocracy had virtually ceased to exist in China, and Confucius had contributed more than any other man to its destruction.
As a young man he had to earn his living at tasks that bordered on the menial. From this he gained, and never lost, a deep sympathy for the common people. Their problems and sufferings were many. Centralized government had broken down. The feudal lords acknowledged only nominal allegiance to the king. Yet they could not be called independent, for some of them were no more than puppets in the hands of their own swashbuckling underlings. Public and private wars raged unchecked. There was very little law and order save what each man could enforce by his own right arm, his armed followers, or his powers of intrigue. Even the greatest noble could not be sure that he would not be ruined and perhaps assassinated. The position of the common people was tragic. Whoever won the wars, they lost. Even when there was peace they had no security, for they had no power. They were virtual pawns of the aristocrats, whose principal interests had come to be hunting, war, and extravagant living. To pay for these pastimes they taxed the people beyond what the traffic could bear, and suppressed all protest ruthlessly.
To the young Confucius these conditions seemed intolerable, and he resolved to devote his life to trying to right them. He talked to others about the way in which the world might be made a better place to live in. Gradually he gathered about himself a group of young men to study his doctrines, and so he became known as a teacher.
The essentials of his teaching were simple. Everywhere about him he saw men struggling against each other, but he refused to believe that that was the natural state of society. He thought it was normal for men to cooperate; to strive, not to get the better of each other, but to promote the common welfare. In his opinion a ruler's success should be measured by his ability, not to amass wealth and power for himself, but to bring about the welfare and happiness of his people.
Confucius realized that the world of which he dreamed would never exist so long as the kind of rulers who occupied the thrones were directing government. There is reason to believe that if it had been possible he would gladly have dispensed with hereditary rulers, but that was out of the question. Instead, he tried to persuade the rulers to turn over their administrative functions to ministers who were virtuous, capable, and properly trained. He tried to educate young men to be such ministers. For such education he accepted the poor and humble on exactly the same basis as the rich and well born. He demanded only two qualifications: intelligence and industry.
He was trying to produce a bloodless revolution. He wanted to take the actual power from rulers who inherited thrones and give it to ministers chosen on the basis of merit, and to change the aim of government from the aggrandizement of a few to the welfare and happiness of the whole people. He knew that mere intellectual conviction is not enough for revolution, and he I tried to kindle in his disciples a veritable passion for the cause to which his life was dedicated. In this he had a large measure of success. This group of "Knights of the Way" (to borrow Arthur Waley's felicitous phrase) was inspired by a measure of devotion not less than that later found in Christian chivalry.
Yet for Confucius it was not enough to be a teacher. He Wanted to direct the government of a state and to see the world of which he dreamed come to life under his hand. It is clear, however, that the rulers of the day cannot have seriously considered putting real power into his hands. At best they must have thought him a harmless eccentric, but one who could be-come dangerous if given power. They did, however, give rather high posts to some of his disciples. It was doubtless at the insitence of these students that Confucius was finally given an . in his native state of Lu, that carried a respectable title But probably involved no real authority.
When he saw that he could accomplish nothing he resigned his post, and set off on travels which took him to a number of states, in search of a ruler who would use his Way. He never found one. These journeyings lasted a decade or more. They accomplished little, but they did prove that he was willing to
undergo great hardship and abuse for his principles. Returning to Lu he resumed his teaching. Five years later he died. His life had had about it very little of the dramatic. There was. no climax and no martyrdom. None of his chief ambitions had been fulfilled. There is little doubt that when he died everyone considered him a failure. Certainly he himself did.
After his death, as his teachings were handed down from one generation of disciples to another, the Confucian group gradually grew in size and influence. The doctrine was changed and elaborated until Confucius himself would scarcely have recognized it, yet two principles remained: the insistence that those who govern should be chosen not for their birth but for their virtue and ability, and that the true end of government is the welfare and happiness of the people. This latter principle made Confucianism popular with the common people, as war and oppression increased and life became more and more difficult.
In 221 b.c. the relatively barbarous state of Ch'in overran China and converted it into a totalitarian empire. The Confucians refused to collaborate. Circulation of their books and teachings was forbidden, and some of them were put to death. Within less than two decades Ch'in was destroyed by a revolution in which the Confucians took a prominent part.
The Han dynasty, which succeeded, was on the whole much more favorable to the Confucians. A number of them came into conflict, however, with its sixth emperor, Wu, who had totalitarian ambitions. He was far too clever to oppose Confucianism openly; instead he posed as its patron and subsidized it. By putting large numbers of Confucians on the government payroll, and personally manipulating the examinations by which officials were beginning to be selected, he exercised considerable influence over the development of Confucian doctrine. From about this time there dates the misuse of Confucianism to justify despotism. This was a perversion of everything that Confucius stood for, against which enlightened and courageous Confucians have never ceased to protest.
Most of the information about Confucius that is current today derives from the Han period or later. This is true of his biography and of those commentaries that seek to put flesh and blood on the dry bones of the classical books. Confucius was scarcely dead before the embroidering of traditions about him began. It seemed unthinkable that one whose ideas were so important could have been unappreciated in his own day; his biography was so written as to make him a powerful statesman. Rival schools of thought at first attacked and ridiculed him; later, they adopted him. Even the totalitarian Legalists converted Confucius to totalitarianism. Most effective of all, they put totalitarian sentiments into his mouth, in passages written into the most venerated scriptures of Confucianism.
All this was useful to those who found the democratic sentiments of Confucius embarrassing and wished to represent him as a supporter of unlimited imperial authority. They needed only to stress these false additions to his supposed sayings, to interpret others, and to forget the rest. Thus they built up a facade behind which it has been very hard, for two thousand years, to find the real Confucius.
There were almost always a few scholars, however, who were capable of discernment. So were a number of the Jesuit missionaries who entered China and became scholars and even officials at the Chinese court in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They brushed aside as so much chaff the accumulation of recent interpretation, and sought to go back to Confucius himself. In letter after letter to Europe they told of the wonderful new philosopher they had discovered.
Thus Confucius became known to Europe just at the beginning of the philosophic movement known as the Enlightenment. A large number of philosophers, including Leibniz, Wolff, and Voltaire, as well as statesmen and men of letters, used his name .ind his ideas to further their arguments, and they themselves were influenced in the process. Both in France and in England the fact that China, under the impulsion of Confucianism, had long since virtually abolished hereditary aristocracy, was used as a weapon in the attack on hereditary privilege. The philosophy of Confucius played a role of some importance in the development of democratic ideals in Europe and in the background of the French Revolution. Through French thought it indirectly influenced the development of democracy in America. It is of Interest that Thomas Jefferson proposed, as "the key-stone of the arch of our government," an educational system that shows remarkable similarities to the Chinese examination system. The extent to which Confucianism contributed to the development of Western democracy is often forgotten, for rather curious reasons that we must examine in their proper place.
In China the story was similar. Confucius was an important intellectual ancestor of the Chinese Revolution. Sun Yat-sen declared that "both Confucius and Mencius were exponents of democracy," and gave to the Republic of China a constitution that bears the deep impress of Confucian principles. Yet some of his countrymen today think of Confucius as a reactionary who helped to forge the chains of despotism, and regard him with hostility or indifference.
In a book concerned only with Europe, W. E. H. Lecky wrote a description that applies to Confucius with remarkable aptness:
There arise from time to time men who bear to the moral condition of their age much the same relations as men of genius bear to its intellectual condition. They anticipate the moral standard of a later age, cast abroad conceptions of disinterested virtue, of philanthropy, or of self-denial that seem to have no relation to the spirit of their time, inculcate duties and suggest motives of action that appear to most men altogether chimerical. Yet the magnetism of their perfection tells powerfully upon their contemporaries. An enthusiasm is kindled, a group of adherents is formed, and many are emancipated from the moral condition of their age. Yet the full effects of such a movement are but transient. The first enthusiasm dies away, surrounding circumstances resume their ascendancy, the pure faith is materialised, encrusted with conceptions that are alien to its nature, dislocated, and distorted, till its first features have almost disappeared. The moral teaching, being unsuited to the time, becomes inoperative until its appropriate civilization has dawned; or at most it faintly and imperfectly filters through an accumulation of dogmas, and thus accelerates in some measure the arrival of the condition it requires.*
All of this is true of Confucius. It helps to explain why, as he himself said, no one fully understood him even in his own day, and why later generations have often seriously misunderstood him. It helps to explain the fact that this man, who lived so long ago and was so obscure in his lifetime, left behind him an influence that continues to affect men's thoughts and actions even in our own day.
Author: H.G CREEL - Confucius and the Chinese Way
Related Document(s)
Three Religions Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism
...Read more!
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Freedom to Practise Religion in Malaysia
Freedom to Practise Religion in Malaysia
It is with a deep sense of pride that we can lagain reflect on the high degree of religious tolerance and understanding that we maintain in Malaysia. Given its extremely complex ethnic and cultural set up, one would expect religious differences to play a dominant role in our social and political affairs. Surprisingly this has not happened. Although there have been attempts to highlight religious problems every now and then, commonsense and goodwill have always prevailed, making Malaysia the envy of other nations the world over.
Besides the unhealthy attitude adopted by some over zealous missionaries to convert the followers of other religions through their unethical and aggressive methods, we can say that generally there is little discrimination among religions in Malaysia.
To ensure that this atmosphere prevails, Malaysians have preferred to discuss their complaints about their dissatisfaction regarding religious matters between the leaders of the different religions rather than going out on the streets. We must make mention the important role played by the BCCHS - the Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and Sikhism. This council has brought up many grievances to the government which on its part has generally been receptive and understanding. Of course it is too much to claim that all problems can be easily settled, but at least people have a forum at which their views can be heard.
Another such group is the Insaf which is a group including all major religious groups -Islam, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and Sikh and some other religious groups under the umbrella of Pure Life Society which are concerned with fostering greater understanding and respect towards the different beliefs.
Mention must also be made of FIRE, a Catholic movement devoted to Inter Religious Empowerment. It actively promotes ecumenism not only among the different Christian sects, but also tries to reach out to non Christian religions, something quite unthinkable a few decades ago. This group tries to bring different religions, together to prove that we can have different beliefs and yet share our spirituality. Their efforts are to be greatly commended and supported. If we can finally arrive at the day when we agree to respect our different religions without trying to convert others then we would have really gained full spiritual maturity. Let Malaysia show the rest of the world that this can be done.
To further underscore this point, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohd asserted at the 'Conference on Islam and Tolerance' in 1994 :
It should be understood that even the Qur'an had made it clear that there was no compulsion in religion and that Muslims were required to have good ties with non-Muslims who did not develop animosity towards them. If all Muslims know and understand the teachings of Islam from the Qur'an, hadith and sunnah, from books and history, not only will their ties with non-Muslims improve, but also non-Muslims will really understand the teachings and principles of Islam. With this it will improve the Islamic tolerance in relation to all parties. This is an admirable attitude which should be adopted by the followers of all the religious in Malaysia.
Addressing a very young man who was very enthusiastic in the Buddha's teaching the Buddha said, 'Young man, you should not think I teach dharma to gain followers. You should not think that I teach dharma to encourage you to give up your religion to follow me, nor should you think I teach dharma to encourage you to do wrong things. If you follow a teacher and you find his teaching is conducive to your peace and happiness, follow him. I teach dharma to point out that there are things which are harmful to
you and to others. You should abandon them. There are beautiful things for you and for others. Follow them.
'It is difficult for one to find ones own salvation by praising and glorifying one's own religion and condemning and ridiculing other religions. '(Dharmakirti)
Whenever there are different concepts and beliefs among the followers of different religions, instead of arguing or condemning each others beliefs, the best method for them to adapt in order to maintain their friendship is to agree to disagree.
...Read more!
It is with a deep sense of pride that we can lagain reflect on the high degree of religious tolerance and understanding that we maintain in Malaysia. Given its extremely complex ethnic and cultural set up, one would expect religious differences to play a dominant role in our social and political affairs. Surprisingly this has not happened. Although there have been attempts to highlight religious problems every now and then, commonsense and goodwill have always prevailed, making Malaysia the envy of other nations the world over.
Besides the unhealthy attitude adopted by some over zealous missionaries to convert the followers of other religions through their unethical and aggressive methods, we can say that generally there is little discrimination among religions in Malaysia.
To ensure that this atmosphere prevails, Malaysians have preferred to discuss their complaints about their dissatisfaction regarding religious matters between the leaders of the different religions rather than going out on the streets. We must make mention the important role played by the BCCHS - the Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and Sikhism. This council has brought up many grievances to the government which on its part has generally been receptive and understanding. Of course it is too much to claim that all problems can be easily settled, but at least people have a forum at which their views can be heard.
Another such group is the Insaf which is a group including all major religious groups -Islam, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and Sikh and some other religious groups under the umbrella of Pure Life Society which are concerned with fostering greater understanding and respect towards the different beliefs.
Mention must also be made of FIRE, a Catholic movement devoted to Inter Religious Empowerment. It actively promotes ecumenism not only among the different Christian sects, but also tries to reach out to non Christian religions, something quite unthinkable a few decades ago. This group tries to bring different religions, together to prove that we can have different beliefs and yet share our spirituality. Their efforts are to be greatly commended and supported. If we can finally arrive at the day when we agree to respect our different religions without trying to convert others then we would have really gained full spiritual maturity. Let Malaysia show the rest of the world that this can be done.
To further underscore this point, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohd asserted at the 'Conference on Islam and Tolerance' in 1994 :
It should be understood that even the Qur'an had made it clear that there was no compulsion in religion and that Muslims were required to have good ties with non-Muslims who did not develop animosity towards them. If all Muslims know and understand the teachings of Islam from the Qur'an, hadith and sunnah, from books and history, not only will their ties with non-Muslims improve, but also non-Muslims will really understand the teachings and principles of Islam. With this it will improve the Islamic tolerance in relation to all parties. This is an admirable attitude which should be adopted by the followers of all the religious in Malaysia.
Addressing a very young man who was very enthusiastic in the Buddha's teaching the Buddha said, 'Young man, you should not think I teach dharma to gain followers. You should not think that I teach dharma to encourage you to give up your religion to follow me, nor should you think I teach dharma to encourage you to do wrong things. If you follow a teacher and you find his teaching is conducive to your peace and happiness, follow him. I teach dharma to point out that there are things which are harmful to
you and to others. You should abandon them. There are beautiful things for you and for others. Follow them.
'It is difficult for one to find ones own salvation by praising and glorifying one's own religion and condemning and ridiculing other religions. '(Dharmakirti)
Whenever there are different concepts and beliefs among the followers of different religions, instead of arguing or condemning each others beliefs, the best method for them to adapt in order to maintain their friendship is to agree to disagree.
...Read more!
Truth in Others, War, Aggression and Unite Together
SEE TRUTH IN OTHERS
The period during the time of the Buddha in India was one of great religions and spiritual activities. One of the discourses of the Buddha, 'Brahmajala Sutra' records that there were six main religious schools of thought which were again subdivided into 62 sects. These ranged from eternalism and belief in a single Creator God to nihilism where no hereafter was postulated. While the Buddha rejected the dogmatic stand taken by these religions (that they alone were right and all others were wrong) he was quite prepared to see that there were some elements of Truth (the Dharma) in each of them. He urged his followers to recognize the truth taught in other religions but to be vigilant and discern any 'false view' in these teachings. For example his foster mother who had become a nun was given this advice on how to differentiate between correct and false religions: He advised her that to judge a religion one must test whether it reduces passions or increases them, whether it leads to freedom of the spirit rather than enslavement of the self, whether it increases greed or reduces greed, whether it makes people want to do good. If all the positive aspects are encouraged, then it is to be recognized as a true religion.
Truth does not belong to any particular religion. Even those who do not claim any religion also know how to appreciate the truth. There are more than enough common virtues for religionists to introduce in theory and practice in the name of religion, so that people may lead a righteous, peaceful and cultured way of life. There is no need for us to belittle and castigate one another. If we do so, we would only pave the way for the anti-religious groups who are waiting to ridicule and condemn all religions. We should not behave in such a way as to show our hostile attitude to our co-religionists. If we do so, people will say that religions encourage mankind to be divided.
WAR AND AGGRESSION
It is a matter of historical truth that throughout the 25 centuries of its existence there has never been even one instance of religious persecution or war waged in the name of Buddhism. Of course, people calling themselves Buddhists have fought other people, and killed and pillaged, but it has never been for the purpose of spreading Buddhism or for the glory of Buddhism. The most outstanding example of this is H.H. the Dalai Lama who has struggled against the Chinese occupation of his homeland, but who has consistently insisted that he 'loves his Chinese brothers and sisters' and that he will only use non-violent means to regain the country. In this connection we can quote Professor Rhys Davids who wrote: 'There is no record known to me in the whole of the long history of Buddhism throughout the many centuries where his followers have been for such lengthened periods reigned supreme, of any persecution by the Buddhists of the followers of any other faith'. Buddhism was thus able to diffuse itself through a great variety of cultures throughout the world.
The Emperor Asoka who conquered almost all of the Indian sub-continent with unimaginable ruthlessness and cruelty. However after his last battle against the Kalingas where more than 100,000 men, women and children were mercilessly slaughtered, he turned to Buddhism and was completely transformed from Candasoka (cruel Asoka) to Dhammasoka (righteous Asoka). He turned from violence to compassion.
Buddhists are not forbidden to give due respect to other religious teachers, nor are they restricted in visiting places of worship and attending religious services, other than Buddhism. They can show their full cooperation while maintaining their basic Buddhist principles.
Buddhism encourages cooperation and understanding amongst the various religious denominations. From the Buddhist point of view, religious labels are not the most important aspect for people to be considered religious, but any person leading a respectable and harmless way of life can be regarded as religious.
Those who find faults and criticize Buddhism can only do so at a very superficial level. They may criticize the traditional practices and customs but not the teachings as taught by the Buddha, as the religious principles taught by the Buddha are good for all time. They can be tried out by anyone who wishes to test them.
The methods used to introduce the teachings of the Buddha are peaceful and reasonable. The Buddha made his appeal through reason and experience. The teachings were presented with clear and impressive simplicity and kept free from religious and national narrowness and fanaticism. They have produced clear and sober-minded people. This method of presentation cleared doubts and removed superstitious beliefs. Thus did the teachings of the Buddha convert the hearts and minds of the earnest seekers of truth. The Buddhist attitude of tolerance and understanding convinced many great thinkers, philosophers, rationalists, free-thinkers and even agnostics to appreciate Buddhism as a peaceful way of life devoid of fear and According to the Buddha, men are divided among themselves because of their strong sense of ego. When this is subdued by seeing the essential emptiness of a being, healthy human relationships will develop. The search for peace and a harmonious way of life, therefore begins from within and not from the outside.
An understanding of this central teaching of Buddhism is very important to the discussion of our topic. With this understanding we see that all human activities, including religion are mind-made. The Buddha said that his teachings must be seen as a raft to cross a river; once we have used it to get to the other bank, we need not be burdened with it to climb the mountain, which is our real destination. Zen Buddhists say the teachings simply represent the finger pointing to the moon, they are not the moon itself. So the religion of Buddhism which developed from the Teachings is merely a convenient vessel to help us reach our real destination. It is not the Ultimate Reality. Since therefore everything, including religion is mind-made and lacking in any ultimate reality there is no need to argue about the superiority of one's beliefs over that of another's.
UNITE TOGETHER
If we, the religionists of today cannot get together to work in harmony without discrimination or hostility towards one another, the peace that we talk of would only remain as a dream.
As sincere and true co-religionists, let us join hands to consolidate our efforts to eradicate all that is controversial and discriminatory in our teachings and do our utmost to introduce spiritual values which are common in our respective religions for the good and well-being of all mankind, irrespective of race or creed. We should all remember that religion exists for the good of mankind and that it should not be misused fanatically in any way for personal gain or self-glorification.
Let all religionists unite to condemn religious militarism. Let them unite to stop all the brutality and manslaughter in the name of war.
-Let them unite to give freedom to man to find a religion according to his or her own conviction.
-Let them unite to give up religious monopoly. Let them unite not to use religion in the market place to convert others by adopting unethical or questionable methods.
-Let them unite to respect the other person's religious beliefs and practices as long as these beliefs and practices are harmless and do not mislead the public.
-Let them unite to wipe out the challenging attitude of unhealthy religious competition or without adopting any aggressive attitude. Let all religionists unite to eliminate the various vices and immoral practices that are common in our modern society.
-Let them also unite to introduce the moderate way of life amongst their followers and advise them not to go too extremes.
Dr. L.M. Joshi of Punjab University says: 'The unity among the religions of mankind, if and when achieved, will be one of the greatest blessings on this earth. Certainly we cannot bring about this unity by mystifying or misinterpreting their differences in origins and doctrines. We can perhaps contribute towards achieving harmony among the followers of different faiths by impartially and respectfully studying their doctrines, beliefs and practices.' Like the bee gathering honey from different flowers, without harming them, the wise one sees only the good in all religions and accepts the essence of the truth of the different teachings. For example:
(1) Buddhism says, 'Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.'
(2) Taoism says, 'Regard your neighbour's gain as your own gain, and your neighbour's loss as your own loss.'
(3) Christianity says,' All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.'
(4) Islam says, 'Do unto all men as you would they should do unto you, and reject for others what you would reject for yourself.'
(5) Hinduism says, 'Let no one do to others what he would not have done to himself.'
The founders of each religion had as their basic aim the unity of mankind - to foster harmony, goodwill and understanding among all the people of the world.
Following in their footsteps various religious leaders have also sought to develop this deep respect for the beliefs of other people. Unfortunately, however, certain followers of every religion, for their own selfish reasons and due to their intolerance and narrow-mindedness, have gone against the real essence of Religion and have created chaos, suspicion, discrimination and hostility.
Earlier on we noted that the Buddha's Enlightenment arose as a result of his discovering the Middle Path, which is the rejection of Eternalism and Nihilism, but finding a compromise between these two extremes.
However the Middle Path can be applied to every other aspect of living as well. Moderation and Contentment are seen as the bases of a happy life in this existence. The avoidance of extremes and the respect for other perspectives is applied in the everyday behavior of Buddhists all over the world. For example there are very few objections to participation in the rituals of other religions provided they are not harmful, as when it involves the killing of animals. Buddhists are quite free to go to Church, Temple or Mosque because in all these places the mind can become concentrated and free from evil thoughts. Buddhists are quite tolerant when it comes to mixed marriages, seeing them as a purely social function, invented by man to serve a mundane need. Marriage has nothing to do with one's spiritual development, so the marriage to a person of another faith is not seen as a transgression of any religious law.
In conclusion" we can say that the Buddhist attitude towards other religions is one of tolerance and respect. It arises from the Buddhist perception of the mundane nature of all human activity. The transcendence of these activities gives rise to spiritual development where religious differences lose their boundaries.
We earnestly hope that by realizing these facts mankind will one day unite as religious brothers to work f r the well-being of all. In the final analysis, let us remember that respect for the religion of another person springs from the confidence one has in the intrinsic strength of his or her own religion.
...Read more!
The period during the time of the Buddha in India was one of great religions and spiritual activities. One of the discourses of the Buddha, 'Brahmajala Sutra' records that there were six main religious schools of thought which were again subdivided into 62 sects. These ranged from eternalism and belief in a single Creator God to nihilism where no hereafter was postulated. While the Buddha rejected the dogmatic stand taken by these religions (that they alone were right and all others were wrong) he was quite prepared to see that there were some elements of Truth (the Dharma) in each of them. He urged his followers to recognize the truth taught in other religions but to be vigilant and discern any 'false view' in these teachings. For example his foster mother who had become a nun was given this advice on how to differentiate between correct and false religions: He advised her that to judge a religion one must test whether it reduces passions or increases them, whether it leads to freedom of the spirit rather than enslavement of the self, whether it increases greed or reduces greed, whether it makes people want to do good. If all the positive aspects are encouraged, then it is to be recognized as a true religion.
Truth does not belong to any particular religion. Even those who do not claim any religion also know how to appreciate the truth. There are more than enough common virtues for religionists to introduce in theory and practice in the name of religion, so that people may lead a righteous, peaceful and cultured way of life. There is no need for us to belittle and castigate one another. If we do so, we would only pave the way for the anti-religious groups who are waiting to ridicule and condemn all religions. We should not behave in such a way as to show our hostile attitude to our co-religionists. If we do so, people will say that religions encourage mankind to be divided.
WAR AND AGGRESSION
It is a matter of historical truth that throughout the 25 centuries of its existence there has never been even one instance of religious persecution or war waged in the name of Buddhism. Of course, people calling themselves Buddhists have fought other people, and killed and pillaged, but it has never been for the purpose of spreading Buddhism or for the glory of Buddhism. The most outstanding example of this is H.H. the Dalai Lama who has struggled against the Chinese occupation of his homeland, but who has consistently insisted that he 'loves his Chinese brothers and sisters' and that he will only use non-violent means to regain the country. In this connection we can quote Professor Rhys Davids who wrote: 'There is no record known to me in the whole of the long history of Buddhism throughout the many centuries where his followers have been for such lengthened periods reigned supreme, of any persecution by the Buddhists of the followers of any other faith'. Buddhism was thus able to diffuse itself through a great variety of cultures throughout the world.
The Emperor Asoka who conquered almost all of the Indian sub-continent with unimaginable ruthlessness and cruelty. However after his last battle against the Kalingas where more than 100,000 men, women and children were mercilessly slaughtered, he turned to Buddhism and was completely transformed from Candasoka (cruel Asoka) to Dhammasoka (righteous Asoka). He turned from violence to compassion.
Buddhists are not forbidden to give due respect to other religious teachers, nor are they restricted in visiting places of worship and attending religious services, other than Buddhism. They can show their full cooperation while maintaining their basic Buddhist principles.
Buddhism encourages cooperation and understanding amongst the various religious denominations. From the Buddhist point of view, religious labels are not the most important aspect for people to be considered religious, but any person leading a respectable and harmless way of life can be regarded as religious.
Those who find faults and criticize Buddhism can only do so at a very superficial level. They may criticize the traditional practices and customs but not the teachings as taught by the Buddha, as the religious principles taught by the Buddha are good for all time. They can be tried out by anyone who wishes to test them.
The methods used to introduce the teachings of the Buddha are peaceful and reasonable. The Buddha made his appeal through reason and experience. The teachings were presented with clear and impressive simplicity and kept free from religious and national narrowness and fanaticism. They have produced clear and sober-minded people. This method of presentation cleared doubts and removed superstitious beliefs. Thus did the teachings of the Buddha convert the hearts and minds of the earnest seekers of truth. The Buddhist attitude of tolerance and understanding convinced many great thinkers, philosophers, rationalists, free-thinkers and even agnostics to appreciate Buddhism as a peaceful way of life devoid of fear and According to the Buddha, men are divided among themselves because of their strong sense of ego. When this is subdued by seeing the essential emptiness of a being, healthy human relationships will develop. The search for peace and a harmonious way of life, therefore begins from within and not from the outside.
An understanding of this central teaching of Buddhism is very important to the discussion of our topic. With this understanding we see that all human activities, including religion are mind-made. The Buddha said that his teachings must be seen as a raft to cross a river; once we have used it to get to the other bank, we need not be burdened with it to climb the mountain, which is our real destination. Zen Buddhists say the teachings simply represent the finger pointing to the moon, they are not the moon itself. So the religion of Buddhism which developed from the Teachings is merely a convenient vessel to help us reach our real destination. It is not the Ultimate Reality. Since therefore everything, including religion is mind-made and lacking in any ultimate reality there is no need to argue about the superiority of one's beliefs over that of another's.
UNITE TOGETHER
If we, the religionists of today cannot get together to work in harmony without discrimination or hostility towards one another, the peace that we talk of would only remain as a dream.
As sincere and true co-religionists, let us join hands to consolidate our efforts to eradicate all that is controversial and discriminatory in our teachings and do our utmost to introduce spiritual values which are common in our respective religions for the good and well-being of all mankind, irrespective of race or creed. We should all remember that religion exists for the good of mankind and that it should not be misused fanatically in any way for personal gain or self-glorification.
Let all religionists unite to condemn religious militarism. Let them unite to stop all the brutality and manslaughter in the name of war.
-Let them unite to give freedom to man to find a religion according to his or her own conviction.
-Let them unite to give up religious monopoly. Let them unite not to use religion in the market place to convert others by adopting unethical or questionable methods.
-Let them unite to respect the other person's religious beliefs and practices as long as these beliefs and practices are harmless and do not mislead the public.
-Let them unite to wipe out the challenging attitude of unhealthy religious competition or without adopting any aggressive attitude. Let all religionists unite to eliminate the various vices and immoral practices that are common in our modern society.
-Let them also unite to introduce the moderate way of life amongst their followers and advise them not to go too extremes.
Dr. L.M. Joshi of Punjab University says: 'The unity among the religions of mankind, if and when achieved, will be one of the greatest blessings on this earth. Certainly we cannot bring about this unity by mystifying or misinterpreting their differences in origins and doctrines. We can perhaps contribute towards achieving harmony among the followers of different faiths by impartially and respectfully studying their doctrines, beliefs and practices.' Like the bee gathering honey from different flowers, without harming them, the wise one sees only the good in all religions and accepts the essence of the truth of the different teachings. For example:
(1) Buddhism says, 'Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.'
(2) Taoism says, 'Regard your neighbour's gain as your own gain, and your neighbour's loss as your own loss.'
(3) Christianity says,' All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.'
(4) Islam says, 'Do unto all men as you would they should do unto you, and reject for others what you would reject for yourself.'
(5) Hinduism says, 'Let no one do to others what he would not have done to himself.'
The founders of each religion had as their basic aim the unity of mankind - to foster harmony, goodwill and understanding among all the people of the world.
Following in their footsteps various religious leaders have also sought to develop this deep respect for the beliefs of other people. Unfortunately, however, certain followers of every religion, for their own selfish reasons and due to their intolerance and narrow-mindedness, have gone against the real essence of Religion and have created chaos, suspicion, discrimination and hostility.
Earlier on we noted that the Buddha's Enlightenment arose as a result of his discovering the Middle Path, which is the rejection of Eternalism and Nihilism, but finding a compromise between these two extremes.
However the Middle Path can be applied to every other aspect of living as well. Moderation and Contentment are seen as the bases of a happy life in this existence. The avoidance of extremes and the respect for other perspectives is applied in the everyday behavior of Buddhists all over the world. For example there are very few objections to participation in the rituals of other religions provided they are not harmful, as when it involves the killing of animals. Buddhists are quite free to go to Church, Temple or Mosque because in all these places the mind can become concentrated and free from evil thoughts. Buddhists are quite tolerant when it comes to mixed marriages, seeing them as a purely social function, invented by man to serve a mundane need. Marriage has nothing to do with one's spiritual development, so the marriage to a person of another faith is not seen as a transgression of any religious law.
In conclusion" we can say that the Buddhist attitude towards other religions is one of tolerance and respect. It arises from the Buddhist perception of the mundane nature of all human activity. The transcendence of these activities gives rise to spiritual development where religious differences lose their boundaries.
We earnestly hope that by realizing these facts mankind will one day unite as religious brothers to work f r the well-being of all. In the final analysis, let us remember that respect for the religion of another person springs from the confidence one has in the intrinsic strength of his or her own religion.
...Read more!
First Missionary Religion and Religious Harmony
FIRST MISSIONARY RELIGION
Buddhism became the first missionary religion the world has seen. Nearly two thousand three hundred years ago, Buddhism expanded beyond India through the noble efforts of the Indian Emperor Asoka. The historian, H.G. Wells, inspired by the greatness of Asoka, says: amidst the tens of thousands of names of monarchs that crowd the columns of history, their majesties and graciousness and serenity and royal highnesses and the like, the name of Asoka shines, and almost alone, a star ..
For he, the Emperor who ruled India (about 305 b.c.e. - 268 b.c.e.) at the height of his thirst for worldly power, renounced the sword of violence and devoted much of his time for the upliftment of Buddhism and Buddhist culture. He sent out Buddhist missionaries, including his own son and daughter throughout the length and breadth of the then known world, to convey the peace message of the Buddha. True to the noble tradition of the Buddha, he never neglected to advise these missionaries not to condemn or to run down any other religion while they preached Buddhism. This advice was engraved on an Asoka pillar in Brahmi characters - the ruins of which can still be seen today in India.
The following statements in the Edict says-One should not honour only one's own religion and condemn the religions of others, but one should honour others' religion for this or that reason. In so doing, one helps one's own religion to grow and renders service to the religions of others too. In acting otherwise one digs the grave of one's own religion and also does harm to other religions. Whosoever honours his own religions and condemns other religions, does so indeed through devotion to his own religions, thinking 7 will glonfy my own religion,' but on the contrary, in so doing he injures his own religion more gravely. So concord is good: 'Let all listen and be willing to listen to the doctrines professed by others.'
The people of Asia have much cause to be grateful to this great monarch. As a ruler he did his duty to support every existing religion without any discrimination. That is why he is honoured today while many others who tried to dominate the whole world by adopting cruel methods were ignored by people.
RELIGIOUS HARMONY
Religious principles are intended for the whole of mankind. If any particular section of humanity does not follow the great virtues taught by religion - such as kindness, patience, tolerance and understanding, it would be difficult for others to live peacefully.
It is quite natural for cunning and cruel people to take advantage of any kind of virtue. The religionists of today, must bear in mind that those who fight and shed blood in the name of religion, do not follow religious principles and do not serve the cause of humanity. They fight for their own personal gain or power by using the name of religion. Those who truly practise a religion have no grounds to fight. They should settle their problems in a peaceful manner. A true religion never encourages any form of violence under any circumstance. At the same time, racial discrimination should not arise when we practise our respective religions. Buddhists can live and work with other religionists without any discrimination. Not only that, Buddhists have never shed blood in the name of religion amongst their different denominations or with other religions.
Today because of the atrocities that have been done and are still continuing in the name of religion, many people have become disillusioned at the mention of the very word, 'religion'. Materialism, hypocrisy and fanaticism masquerading under the guise of religion have caused great injustices in the history of mankind. The true religious values are rapidly disappearing from the minds of men as they run in search of the occult and the mystical. The established great religions of the world are breaking into myriads of forms while on the other hand some people are going all out to ridicule religion. The time has come for religionists of today to get together to introduce religious values in their proper perspective, instead of merely arguing and quarrelling over the differences of religious ideologies and mythologies.
Religion should not be confined to worshipping and praying only. Religion is not a means for lip service only but a practical medium for man to act harmlessly, to be of service to others, to teach everyone to be good and to gain liberation, peace and real happiness. Each person has three natures: The Animal, the Human and the sublime Divine natures. The purpose of religion is to help human beings realize their noble divine nature.
Different religions may have different beliefs and views regarding the beginning and the end of life, as well as different interpretations regarding the nature of ultimate salvation. But we should not bring forward such discordant issues to create conflict, confrontation, clashes, hatred and misunderstanding.
More:
You Buddhist People - Buddhist Missionaries
...Read more!
Buddhism became the first missionary religion the world has seen. Nearly two thousand three hundred years ago, Buddhism expanded beyond India through the noble efforts of the Indian Emperor Asoka. The historian, H.G. Wells, inspired by the greatness of Asoka, says: amidst the tens of thousands of names of monarchs that crowd the columns of history, their majesties and graciousness and serenity and royal highnesses and the like, the name of Asoka shines, and almost alone, a star ..
For he, the Emperor who ruled India (about 305 b.c.e. - 268 b.c.e.) at the height of his thirst for worldly power, renounced the sword of violence and devoted much of his time for the upliftment of Buddhism and Buddhist culture. He sent out Buddhist missionaries, including his own son and daughter throughout the length and breadth of the then known world, to convey the peace message of the Buddha. True to the noble tradition of the Buddha, he never neglected to advise these missionaries not to condemn or to run down any other religion while they preached Buddhism. This advice was engraved on an Asoka pillar in Brahmi characters - the ruins of which can still be seen today in India.
The following statements in the Edict says-One should not honour only one's own religion and condemn the religions of others, but one should honour others' religion for this or that reason. In so doing, one helps one's own religion to grow and renders service to the religions of others too. In acting otherwise one digs the grave of one's own religion and also does harm to other religions. Whosoever honours his own religions and condemns other religions, does so indeed through devotion to his own religions, thinking 7 will glonfy my own religion,' but on the contrary, in so doing he injures his own religion more gravely. So concord is good: 'Let all listen and be willing to listen to the doctrines professed by others.'
The people of Asia have much cause to be grateful to this great monarch. As a ruler he did his duty to support every existing religion without any discrimination. That is why he is honoured today while many others who tried to dominate the whole world by adopting cruel methods were ignored by people.
RELIGIOUS HARMONY
Religious principles are intended for the whole of mankind. If any particular section of humanity does not follow the great virtues taught by religion - such as kindness, patience, tolerance and understanding, it would be difficult for others to live peacefully.
It is quite natural for cunning and cruel people to take advantage of any kind of virtue. The religionists of today, must bear in mind that those who fight and shed blood in the name of religion, do not follow religious principles and do not serve the cause of humanity. They fight for their own personal gain or power by using the name of religion. Those who truly practise a religion have no grounds to fight. They should settle their problems in a peaceful manner. A true religion never encourages any form of violence under any circumstance. At the same time, racial discrimination should not arise when we practise our respective religions. Buddhists can live and work with other religionists without any discrimination. Not only that, Buddhists have never shed blood in the name of religion amongst their different denominations or with other religions.
Today because of the atrocities that have been done and are still continuing in the name of religion, many people have become disillusioned at the mention of the very word, 'religion'. Materialism, hypocrisy and fanaticism masquerading under the guise of religion have caused great injustices in the history of mankind. The true religious values are rapidly disappearing from the minds of men as they run in search of the occult and the mystical. The established great religions of the world are breaking into myriads of forms while on the other hand some people are going all out to ridicule religion. The time has come for religionists of today to get together to introduce religious values in their proper perspective, instead of merely arguing and quarrelling over the differences of religious ideologies and mythologies.
Religion should not be confined to worshipping and praying only. Religion is not a means for lip service only but a practical medium for man to act harmlessly, to be of service to others, to teach everyone to be good and to gain liberation, peace and real happiness. Each person has three natures: The Animal, the Human and the sublime Divine natures. The purpose of religion is to help human beings realize their noble divine nature.
Different religions may have different beliefs and views regarding the beginning and the end of life, as well as different interpretations regarding the nature of ultimate salvation. But we should not bring forward such discordant issues to create conflict, confrontation, clashes, hatred and misunderstanding.
More:
You Buddhist People - Buddhist Missionaries
...Read more!
Friday, March 13, 2009
What Buddha Wanted to Introduce and The True Religion
WHAT THE BUDDHA WANTED TO INTRODUCE
The Buddha was only concerned about showing the path to ultimate happiness. He was not concerned with founding a religion in his name. The Buddha wanted to show people the difference between good and evil, he wanted to teach humans how to lead a happy, peaceful, and righteous way of life. He never advised his disciples to convert people from one religion to another. His idea of conversion was to introduce a righteous, noble and religious way of life. In fact he said that the greatest miracle one could perform was to convert a bad person into a good one.
The Buddha did not criticise or condemn any religion. He only wanted to enlighten the people by showing them the correct path to avoid superstitious and meaningless practices in the name of religion. He wanted human beings to behave decently after seeing things-as-they-really are. There may be certain age-old traditions and customs maintained by people and incorporated into their religions but some of them are out of date today because scientists have discovered many things in this world which people could not understand earlier.
THE TRUE RELIGION
On the question of what constitutes a true religion, the Buddha has given a liberal answer, stating that wherever the teachings of the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS and the NOBLE EIGHT FOLD PATHS could be found, and where one can find genuine followers who have gained spiritual development, therein lies the true religion. He did not say that Buddhism is the only true religion in this world, but exhorted people to accept and respect truth wherever truth was to be found. This means that we need not ignore the reasonable teachings of the other religions. Such an attitude clearly shows that the Buddha never had any prejudice towards other religions, nor did he try to monopolise religious truth. He wanted to point out one thing - the TRUTH and all his teachings are based on the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS - that'of SUFFERING or unsatisfactoriness, its CAUSE, its CESSATION and the WAY leading to its cessation. The Truths are a reality which exist wherever there are human beings.
Whenever the Buddha advised his disciples to do something or to keep away from something, he always asked them to do so, not only for their own welfare and happiness, but also for the welfare and happiness of others. He said, 'if it is good for you and others, then do it; on the other hand, if it is bad for you and for others, do not do it.' He did not introduce them as commandments or religious laws but as advices. He also did not create fear or temptation through Buddhism.
As a social reformer, the Buddha discovered the deepest roots of human suffering
- GREED, HATRED and DELUSION, which are deeply fixed in the mind. Therefore it is only through mind that true reform can be effected. Reforms imposed upon the external world by compulsion or fear can only last for a short while, but those that spring from the transformation of a person's inner consciousness and understanding are more durable.
The evil tendencies towards GREED, HATRED and DELUSION must eventually be overcome and substituted by the forces of generosity, loving-kindness and wisdom. It is only through such mental purification that peace and happiness can be effectively brought about through religion. And to do this one must exert oneself mindfully: mere prayer and ritual are not enough.
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The Buddha was only concerned about showing the path to ultimate happiness. He was not concerned with founding a religion in his name. The Buddha wanted to show people the difference between good and evil, he wanted to teach humans how to lead a happy, peaceful, and righteous way of life. He never advised his disciples to convert people from one religion to another. His idea of conversion was to introduce a righteous, noble and religious way of life. In fact he said that the greatest miracle one could perform was to convert a bad person into a good one.
The Buddha did not criticise or condemn any religion. He only wanted to enlighten the people by showing them the correct path to avoid superstitious and meaningless practices in the name of religion. He wanted human beings to behave decently after seeing things-as-they-really are. There may be certain age-old traditions and customs maintained by people and incorporated into their religions but some of them are out of date today because scientists have discovered many things in this world which people could not understand earlier.
THE TRUE RELIGION
On the question of what constitutes a true religion, the Buddha has given a liberal answer, stating that wherever the teachings of the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS and the NOBLE EIGHT FOLD PATHS could be found, and where one can find genuine followers who have gained spiritual development, therein lies the true religion. He did not say that Buddhism is the only true religion in this world, but exhorted people to accept and respect truth wherever truth was to be found. This means that we need not ignore the reasonable teachings of the other religions. Such an attitude clearly shows that the Buddha never had any prejudice towards other religions, nor did he try to monopolise religious truth. He wanted to point out one thing - the TRUTH and all his teachings are based on the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS - that'of SUFFERING or unsatisfactoriness, its CAUSE, its CESSATION and the WAY leading to its cessation. The Truths are a reality which exist wherever there are human beings.
Whenever the Buddha advised his disciples to do something or to keep away from something, he always asked them to do so, not only for their own welfare and happiness, but also for the welfare and happiness of others. He said, 'if it is good for you and others, then do it; on the other hand, if it is bad for you and for others, do not do it.' He did not introduce them as commandments or religious laws but as advices. He also did not create fear or temptation through Buddhism.
As a social reformer, the Buddha discovered the deepest roots of human suffering
- GREED, HATRED and DELUSION, which are deeply fixed in the mind. Therefore it is only through mind that true reform can be effected. Reforms imposed upon the external world by compulsion or fear can only last for a short while, but those that spring from the transformation of a person's inner consciousness and understanding are more durable.
The evil tendencies towards GREED, HATRED and DELUSION must eventually be overcome and substituted by the forces of generosity, loving-kindness and wisdom. It is only through such mental purification that peace and happiness can be effectively brought about through religion. And to do this one must exert oneself mindfully: mere prayer and ritual are not enough.
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Accept, Adopt and Adapt
ACCEPT, ADOPT AND ADAPT
The Buddha was even ready to accept other views if they were useful to explain the reality of the Four Noble Truths. According to Ven. Sangharakshita,
'Though the Buddha rejected in the most categorical manner a great many of the beliefs and practices current in his time, references to which will be found scattered all over the pages of the scriptures, it should not be concluded that his attitude towards contemporary trends of thought was entirely negative, much less still unsympathetic or hostile - words which have no meaning in relation to a Fully Enlightened and Wholly Compassionate One. He was as ready to accept as to reject; in fact he was more ready to reject than to accept. For he knew that a positive method of teaching was more appealing, more likely to find entrance into the hearts and minds of his audience, than a purely negative and destructive one, however correct and logical the latter might be. Consequently we find the Buddha constantly putting - if we may be permitted a metaphor which he probably would not have used, even if he had known it, of putting old wine in new bottles. He does not condemn the practice of ceremonial ablution, for instance, so much as insist that real purification comes by bathing, not in the Ganges as people thought, but in the cleansing waters of the Dharma. He does not ask the brahmin to give up tending the Sacred Fire, with which so many ancient traditions and so much religious emotion were bound up, but to remember that the true fire burns within, and that it feeds not on any material object but solely on the fuel of meditation. These examples of the Buddha's capacity to utilize Indian traditional practices for the purposes of his own Teaching could be paralleled by a hundred others from the same canonical sources. Though self-torture had been definitely rejected as a means to Enlightenment, he permitted thirteen ascetic practices, called dhutangas, out of hundreds of similar ones, to the members of his Order, not because he considered them necessary, but because there was a popular demand for them and because they were in any case not positively harmful.'
'This spirit of adaptation and assimilation was one of the factors which enabled Buddhism to spread so rapidly and easily, and with the minimum of opposition, among races and peoples whose traditions and cultural backgrounds were in many ways quite different from those of India.' (Sangharakshita, Survey of Buddhism, p 81)
As Ven. Sangharakshita puts it so eloquently, Buddhism adopted and adapted to any culture it encountered as it spread all over Asia in the first thousand years of its history. Buddhism never sought to replace other religions wherever it spread. Rather it accepted anything 'not positively harmful' (like killing), in other cultures and by assimilation made these practices its own. For example Buddhism did not condemn the belief in tree spirits which the pre Buddhist Thais and Sri Lankans had, but allowed them to continue because it ensured a respect and love for nature. As a result Buddhism fostered the development of unique forms of culture so that we have today Chinese Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, Japanese Buddhism which are culturally distinct but which all agree with the basic doctrinal teachings. In fact we can even see the beginnings of a new Malaysian brand of Buddhism which is quite distinct from the Buddhism practised in traditionally Buddhist countries like Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand.
...Read more!
The Buddha was even ready to accept other views if they were useful to explain the reality of the Four Noble Truths. According to Ven. Sangharakshita,
'Though the Buddha rejected in the most categorical manner a great many of the beliefs and practices current in his time, references to which will be found scattered all over the pages of the scriptures, it should not be concluded that his attitude towards contemporary trends of thought was entirely negative, much less still unsympathetic or hostile - words which have no meaning in relation to a Fully Enlightened and Wholly Compassionate One. He was as ready to accept as to reject; in fact he was more ready to reject than to accept. For he knew that a positive method of teaching was more appealing, more likely to find entrance into the hearts and minds of his audience, than a purely negative and destructive one, however correct and logical the latter might be. Consequently we find the Buddha constantly putting - if we may be permitted a metaphor which he probably would not have used, even if he had known it, of putting old wine in new bottles. He does not condemn the practice of ceremonial ablution, for instance, so much as insist that real purification comes by bathing, not in the Ganges as people thought, but in the cleansing waters of the Dharma. He does not ask the brahmin to give up tending the Sacred Fire, with which so many ancient traditions and so much religious emotion were bound up, but to remember that the true fire burns within, and that it feeds not on any material object but solely on the fuel of meditation. These examples of the Buddha's capacity to utilize Indian traditional practices for the purposes of his own Teaching could be paralleled by a hundred others from the same canonical sources. Though self-torture had been definitely rejected as a means to Enlightenment, he permitted thirteen ascetic practices, called dhutangas, out of hundreds of similar ones, to the members of his Order, not because he considered them necessary, but because there was a popular demand for them and because they were in any case not positively harmful.'
'This spirit of adaptation and assimilation was one of the factors which enabled Buddhism to spread so rapidly and easily, and with the minimum of opposition, among races and peoples whose traditions and cultural backgrounds were in many ways quite different from those of India.' (Sangharakshita, Survey of Buddhism, p 81)
As Ven. Sangharakshita puts it so eloquently, Buddhism adopted and adapted to any culture it encountered as it spread all over Asia in the first thousand years of its history. Buddhism never sought to replace other religions wherever it spread. Rather it accepted anything 'not positively harmful' (like killing), in other cultures and by assimilation made these practices its own. For example Buddhism did not condemn the belief in tree spirits which the pre Buddhist Thais and Sri Lankans had, but allowed them to continue because it ensured a respect and love for nature. As a result Buddhism fostered the development of unique forms of culture so that we have today Chinese Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, Japanese Buddhism which are culturally distinct but which all agree with the basic doctrinal teachings. In fact we can even see the beginnings of a new Malaysian brand of Buddhism which is quite distinct from the Buddhism practised in traditionally Buddhist countries like Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand.
...Read more!
Buddhists Concept Of God and Gods
BUDDHISTS CONCEPT OF GOD AND GODS
It is interesting to note here the Buddha's attitude to the concept of godhead. He did not reject the belief in one god or many gods. He accepted that the condition of a god is that of a being who through moral development is reborn in a happy state. There are many levels of this state, loosely translated as 'heavens'. The beings who inhabit these realms are called 'devas' which literally means 'beings of light'. There is a hierarchy whereby those with very strong karmas are born in the highest realms while those with relatively weaker karmas are born in the lower planes. They live for immensely long periods of time, but they are not eternal, for they must eventually die and be reborn in other states when their store of good karma is expended. This happens because these gods are not perfect.
The gods are powerful and can help human beings in many ways and are entitled to our respect and devotion. However they are Incapable of effecting our salvation. They are capable of anger, revenge, pride and even jealousy Rather than relying on gods, each being must work to purify his or her own mind, through Intense self-effort. Not even a Buddha can give salvation. The Dharma was taught by the Buddha as a means for us to gain our salvation. One must study the Teachings, understand them and above all PRACTISE them sincerely to the best of our ability.
Belief in the gods, therefore is not condemned by the Buddha. They do exist, but while we may appeal to them for help in satisfying some of our desires, we must rely only on ourselves to effect salvation by purifying the mind. Those who believe in a creator God condemn non believers as sinners and discriminate against them although they lead a noble life. Buddhists however do not condemn the believers of God as sinners although buddhists do not agree with certain beliefs and practices that they maintain.
It follows from this that Buddhists can take a very tolerant view of other beliefs. First they are encouraged to recognize the teachings in other religions which conform to their own beliefs and secondly to recognize the gods in other religions and pay them due respect. It must be stressed here that this does not mean a blind acceptance of everything that is believed by everyone else. The Kalama Suttra referred to earlier insists 'when you know, of yourselves that these teachings are good etc'. This means we must be discerning and guard against accepting false views'. But Buddhists are never allowed to condemn others because at all times they must practise compassion and understanding and respect for others.
...Read more!
It is interesting to note here the Buddha's attitude to the concept of godhead. He did not reject the belief in one god or many gods. He accepted that the condition of a god is that of a being who through moral development is reborn in a happy state. There are many levels of this state, loosely translated as 'heavens'. The beings who inhabit these realms are called 'devas' which literally means 'beings of light'. There is a hierarchy whereby those with very strong karmas are born in the highest realms while those with relatively weaker karmas are born in the lower planes. They live for immensely long periods of time, but they are not eternal, for they must eventually die and be reborn in other states when their store of good karma is expended. This happens because these gods are not perfect.
The gods are powerful and can help human beings in many ways and are entitled to our respect and devotion. However they are Incapable of effecting our salvation. They are capable of anger, revenge, pride and even jealousy Rather than relying on gods, each being must work to purify his or her own mind, through Intense self-effort. Not even a Buddha can give salvation. The Dharma was taught by the Buddha as a means for us to gain our salvation. One must study the Teachings, understand them and above all PRACTISE them sincerely to the best of our ability.
Belief in the gods, therefore is not condemned by the Buddha. They do exist, but while we may appeal to them for help in satisfying some of our desires, we must rely only on ourselves to effect salvation by purifying the mind. Those who believe in a creator God condemn non believers as sinners and discriminate against them although they lead a noble life. Buddhists however do not condemn the believers of God as sinners although buddhists do not agree with certain beliefs and practices that they maintain.
It follows from this that Buddhists can take a very tolerant view of other beliefs. First they are encouraged to recognize the teachings in other religions which conform to their own beliefs and secondly to recognize the gods in other religions and pay them due respect. It must be stressed here that this does not mean a blind acceptance of everything that is believed by everyone else. The Kalama Suttra referred to earlier insists 'when you know, of yourselves that these teachings are good etc'. This means we must be discerning and guard against accepting false views'. But Buddhists are never allowed to condemn others because at all times they must practise compassion and understanding and respect for others.
...Read more!
Friday, March 13, 2009
Buddhist Attitude Towards Other Religions
THE BUDDHIST ATTITUDE TOWARDS OTHER RELIGIONS
By Ven. Dr. K. Sri Dhammananda
The aim of this article is to assist in promoting a better understanding of religion, religious tolerance and its deep underlying meaning from the Buddhist point of view and to understand how Buddhism regards other religions.
The meaning of religion is a discipline which enables a person to uphold and respect one's own beliefs without in any way being disrespectful or discourteous towards other religions. To this end, we must establish mutual understanding, mutual cooperation with friendliness towards other religions to achieve religious harmony.
People always talk of religious tolerance and its importance but few, if any, ever pinpoint a practical way of achieving this religious tolerance. It is Our intention that the reader of this article would have better understanding of religious tolerance and would thereby endeavour to promote religious tolerance. We should try to eradicate our so-called superiority to cultivate humane qualities in order to maintain human dignity, to radiate all-embracing kindness without any discrimination, and to train the mind to avoid evil and to purify the mind to gain peace and happiness.
Buddhism is a religion which teaches people to 'live and let live'. In the history of the world, there is no evidence to show that Buddhists have interfered or done any damage to any other religion in any part of the world for the purpose of introducing their religion. Buddhists do not regard the existence of other religions as a hindrance to worldly progress and peace. Instead of converting the followers of other religions into our religion, Buddhists can encourage others to practise their own religions, provided that they promote the well being of all living beings.
The Buddha's message was an invitation to all to join the fold of universal brotherhood to work in strength and harmony for the welfare and happiness of mankind. He had no chosen people, and he did not regard himself as a chosen one either.
The Buddha's first missionaries were Arahantas - the Perfect and Holy Ones. They were noble human beings who by the sheer effort of their renunciation and mental training had gained Perfection. Before sending out these disciples, he advised them in the following manner:
'Go ye, O Bhikkhus, and wander forth for the gain of the many, for the welfare of the many, in compassion for the world; for the good, for the gain, for the welfare of gods and men. Proclaim, O Bhikkhus, the sublime doctrine, preach ye a life of holiness, perfect and pure.'
The Buddha was impartial even regarding his own teachings. Advising his followers to regard the Teachings as a raft which must be used merely to cross the river, he urged them to use their own minds and intelligence to discern the truth. On one occasion, a group of young people called the Kalamas approached him and complained that they were confused because each teacher they went to claimed that he alone was privy to the truth while everyone else was a charlatan or a liar. They asked the Buddha to teach them how to recognize a true religion. His reply has often been described by impartial thinkers as the Charter of Religious Freedom, 'Now Kalamas, do not ye go by hearsay, nor by what is handed down by others, nor by what people say, nor by what is stated on the authority of your traditional teachings. Do not go by reasoning, nor by inferring, nor by argument, nor from reflection on and approval of an opinion, nor out of respect, thinking a recluse must be deferred to. But, Kalamas, when you know, of yourselves: These teachings are not good; they are blameworthy; they are condemned by the wise: these teachings, when followed up and put in practice, conduce to loss and suffering - then reject them' (Anguttara-Nikaya, 1.188. Woodward's translation).
On another occasion the Buddha was approached by an extremely wealthy person called Upali. This man was the follower of another religion and he wanted to join the Buddha but was unsure of how to treat his former teachers. The Buddha clearly stated that he was to treat them with the same respect as before and to continue to support them even if he no longer followed them. Throughout his life the Buddha urged people to respect all religious people in spite of the differences of opinion between them.
The Buddha took this tolerant attitude to all other religions, but he himself had no intention of founding a religion. His experience of Enlightenment was the culmination of an intensely long period of self training and mind purification. Although he had gone to many teachers to find the answers to the problem of existence, he was dissatisfied. He then decided to seek within himself for the answers. He learnt the futility of extreme asceticism and the ignobility of extreme self-gratification. Rejecting these extremes he discovered the Truth of the Middle Way. He learnt that the body must be cared for so that the mind will have the correct conditions for sustained and concentrated thought.
...Read more!
By Ven. Dr. K. Sri Dhammananda
The aim of this article is to assist in promoting a better understanding of religion, religious tolerance and its deep underlying meaning from the Buddhist point of view and to understand how Buddhism regards other religions.
The meaning of religion is a discipline which enables a person to uphold and respect one's own beliefs without in any way being disrespectful or discourteous towards other religions. To this end, we must establish mutual understanding, mutual cooperation with friendliness towards other religions to achieve religious harmony.
People always talk of religious tolerance and its importance but few, if any, ever pinpoint a practical way of achieving this religious tolerance. It is Our intention that the reader of this article would have better understanding of religious tolerance and would thereby endeavour to promote religious tolerance. We should try to eradicate our so-called superiority to cultivate humane qualities in order to maintain human dignity, to radiate all-embracing kindness without any discrimination, and to train the mind to avoid evil and to purify the mind to gain peace and happiness.
Buddhism is a religion which teaches people to 'live and let live'. In the history of the world, there is no evidence to show that Buddhists have interfered or done any damage to any other religion in any part of the world for the purpose of introducing their religion. Buddhists do not regard the existence of other religions as a hindrance to worldly progress and peace. Instead of converting the followers of other religions into our religion, Buddhists can encourage others to practise their own religions, provided that they promote the well being of all living beings.
The Buddha's message was an invitation to all to join the fold of universal brotherhood to work in strength and harmony for the welfare and happiness of mankind. He had no chosen people, and he did not regard himself as a chosen one either.
The Buddha's first missionaries were Arahantas - the Perfect and Holy Ones. They were noble human beings who by the sheer effort of their renunciation and mental training had gained Perfection. Before sending out these disciples, he advised them in the following manner:
'Go ye, O Bhikkhus, and wander forth for the gain of the many, for the welfare of the many, in compassion for the world; for the good, for the gain, for the welfare of gods and men. Proclaim, O Bhikkhus, the sublime doctrine, preach ye a life of holiness, perfect and pure.'
The Buddha was impartial even regarding his own teachings. Advising his followers to regard the Teachings as a raft which must be used merely to cross the river, he urged them to use their own minds and intelligence to discern the truth. On one occasion, a group of young people called the Kalamas approached him and complained that they were confused because each teacher they went to claimed that he alone was privy to the truth while everyone else was a charlatan or a liar. They asked the Buddha to teach them how to recognize a true religion. His reply has often been described by impartial thinkers as the Charter of Religious Freedom, 'Now Kalamas, do not ye go by hearsay, nor by what is handed down by others, nor by what people say, nor by what is stated on the authority of your traditional teachings. Do not go by reasoning, nor by inferring, nor by argument, nor from reflection on and approval of an opinion, nor out of respect, thinking a recluse must be deferred to. But, Kalamas, when you know, of yourselves: These teachings are not good; they are blameworthy; they are condemned by the wise: these teachings, when followed up and put in practice, conduce to loss and suffering - then reject them' (Anguttara-Nikaya, 1.188. Woodward's translation).
On another occasion the Buddha was approached by an extremely wealthy person called Upali. This man was the follower of another religion and he wanted to join the Buddha but was unsure of how to treat his former teachers. The Buddha clearly stated that he was to treat them with the same respect as before and to continue to support them even if he no longer followed them. Throughout his life the Buddha urged people to respect all religious people in spite of the differences of opinion between them.
The Buddha took this tolerant attitude to all other religions, but he himself had no intention of founding a religion. His experience of Enlightenment was the culmination of an intensely long period of self training and mind purification. Although he had gone to many teachers to find the answers to the problem of existence, he was dissatisfied. He then decided to seek within himself for the answers. He learnt the futility of extreme asceticism and the ignobility of extreme self-gratification. Rejecting these extremes he discovered the Truth of the Middle Way. He learnt that the body must be cared for so that the mind will have the correct conditions for sustained and concentrated thought.
...Read more!
Friday, March 13, 2009
Love, Compassion and Enlightenment
Love, Compassion and Enlightenment
Buddhism and the West | Page 5
Roger Gunter-Jones
Among these benefits is the fact that the experience of Emptiness (the essential aspect of enlightenment) is always psychologically liberating whenever it occurs and by whatever means achieved. It puts an end for the time being to the kind of dualistic opposition that normally exists between the inner and the outer man, between subject and object, and between self and other. Someone who is in a state of liberation brought on by the direct perception of Emptiness rejects nothing, judges nothing, and accepts all creatures and things just as they are.
According to Buddhism, this kind of openness and acceptance leads to the highest kind of love: selfless, impartial and all-embracing Compassion. This is the most important practical out come of the teaching. Unfortunately, the emphasis often given to Enlightenment in its noetic aspect tends to obscure its activity as Compassion, and may give the outsider the impression that a Buddhist sage is a rather cold sort of fish. But Buddhist Compassion and Enlightenment are the reverse and obverse of one and the same realisation; they cannot be separated. There is no perfect Compassion without Enlightenment or perfect Enlightenment without Compassion.The figure of the Buddha represents this perfect realisation; he stands before us symbolically as perfect Enlightenment and Compassion, and historically as the perfect example of a cool head combined with a warm heart. So far as the East is concerned, the doctrine of Love came into the world two thousand five hundred years ago with the Buddha and his teaching. At the level of practical activity Compassion is the Buddhist ideal.
Before the actual attainment of Enlightenment, this ideal is approached (that is to say, Compassion is cultivated) by means of meditation on the four "sublime states." These four states are: loving kindness, sympathetic sorrow, sympathetic joy, and impartiality. The practice of these states alone does not lead to enlightenment and is therefore primarily intended to train the as yet unenlightened Buddhist in the art of loving. The relationship between love and the fourth state — impartiality — is rather complex; how impartiality can operate as love is by no means obvious. Even if we take impartiality in its sense as serenity and equanimity it still sounds altogether too much like indifference. However, its role can be partly explained as a means for taking selfishness out of unenlightened love and altruism. It has also been suggested that through the practice of impartiality one becomes conscious of the underlying reality that is common to all creatures, and that this consciousness can then take the place of the normal dualistic and unenlightened "I-THOU" relationship. Some people may see in this suggestion a shadow of the idea that the "love of God" can serve as a basis for the love of persons. To this, however, it might be objected that in practice in everyday life it is better, and incidentally more difficult, to love people for themselves than for the sake of something else.
Whatever may be the valid logic of this problem of non-dualistic love, in Mahayana Buddhism impartiality is clearly defined as including loving kindness and sympathetic sorrow. Impartiality is said to ensure that one is equally compassionate to all as if they were — in the Buddhist simile — one's only son, and it is also said that impartial compassion is "the desire that comes of its own accord to do good to all beings without the least craving for their love." Does this sound improbable? Maybe. Certainly it cannot be proved logically that love becomes spontaneous when all the impediments have been removed. We cannot say whether the liberated consciousness is always charitable without choice, and therefore, incidentally, also without moral worth. Nor can we say that all individuals have the same capacity for warmth. Here, as in everything else, personal experience is not only the ground of verification but also the limitation, for we cannot know more about other peoples' feelings than we know about our own.
In the West we seldom make clear distinctions between all these different kinds of love. We use the term to designate a wide variety of feelings and attitudes. Also, through long association with a mawkish and sanctimonious kind of religiosity, the term used in a religious sense can make Westerners squirm with embarrassment. However, we do actually practise love in all four of its Buddhist categories. For example, we know loving kindness, which Buddhism defines as "the love a mother has for her child"; we also experience sympathetic sorrow in the misfortunes and sufferings of others, even though it may be seasoned with a little self-satisfaction, and perhaps occasionally with a pinch of malicious pleasure, as when the neighbour dents his much vaunted new car; and we can feel sympathetic joy at the success and happiness of others, though possibly combined with a certain amount of envy or resentment, except perhaps in the case of those dear to us or who, as in the case of children, are not in competition with us; and lastly, some of us may experience impartial compassion through taking part in some activity concerned with the "loving care of others," though this is often debased by some political or other kind of self-interest. But it is unlikely that any of these forms of love will be entirely free of all traces of the "l-THOU" relationship, not only because it is difficult to practise selfless, non-dualistic love, but also because in the West our theories about love actually encourage a dualistic relationship.
Although non-dualistic, impartial, Buddhist compassion as a form of love is obviously not unknown in the West, it is not widely understood or generally held before us as an ideal. Nevertheless, it is towards the realisation of this perfect form of love that Christianity and Buddhism both converge from their separate starting points and by means of their different systems. Concerning the relationship between Buddhist Compassion and Christian Love, Dom Aelred Graham says: "The Buddhist 'compassion,' it seems to me, has richer implications than all but the supreme form of Christian love. Christianity at the level of practice only rarely overcomes its theoretical dualism between man and God, and between man and man." And he suggests: "Perhaps the Buddhist and Christian ways of loving can meet if the emphasis is thrown on enlightened understanding rather than on benevolence."
According to Buddhism, as we have already noted, enlightened understanding rests upon the realisation of Emptiness. This realisation puts an end to the kind of duality that Dom Aelred Graham suggests can be an impediment in the practice of Christian Love. Perhaps, therefore, the Buddhist theory and experience of Emptiness will indeed prove to be, as suggested earlier in this discussion, the best part of the contribution that Buddhism can make to our Western religious culture.
However, we do not yet know whether the West will accept Emptiness as valid in theory and useful in practice. If it does accept it in principle, then it should note that the importance of direct personal experience can not be exaggerated. Without this experience, the contribution of Buddhism to Western culture may in the end prove ineffective, a mere intellectual gloss. To be really effective, the truth of Emptiness must not only be understood but must also be absorbed as an accepted concept of our Western consciousness through the personal experience and influence of a significant minority.
Buddhism in the West Series:
...Read more!
Buddhism and the West | Page 5
Roger Gunter-Jones
Among these benefits is the fact that the experience of Emptiness (the essential aspect of enlightenment) is always psychologically liberating whenever it occurs and by whatever means achieved. It puts an end for the time being to the kind of dualistic opposition that normally exists between the inner and the outer man, between subject and object, and between self and other. Someone who is in a state of liberation brought on by the direct perception of Emptiness rejects nothing, judges nothing, and accepts all creatures and things just as they are.
According to Buddhism, this kind of openness and acceptance leads to the highest kind of love: selfless, impartial and all-embracing Compassion. This is the most important practical out come of the teaching. Unfortunately, the emphasis often given to Enlightenment in its noetic aspect tends to obscure its activity as Compassion, and may give the outsider the impression that a Buddhist sage is a rather cold sort of fish. But Buddhist Compassion and Enlightenment are the reverse and obverse of one and the same realisation; they cannot be separated. There is no perfect Compassion without Enlightenment or perfect Enlightenment without Compassion.The figure of the Buddha represents this perfect realisation; he stands before us symbolically as perfect Enlightenment and Compassion, and historically as the perfect example of a cool head combined with a warm heart. So far as the East is concerned, the doctrine of Love came into the world two thousand five hundred years ago with the Buddha and his teaching. At the level of practical activity Compassion is the Buddhist ideal.
Before the actual attainment of Enlightenment, this ideal is approached (that is to say, Compassion is cultivated) by means of meditation on the four "sublime states." These four states are: loving kindness, sympathetic sorrow, sympathetic joy, and impartiality. The practice of these states alone does not lead to enlightenment and is therefore primarily intended to train the as yet unenlightened Buddhist in the art of loving. The relationship between love and the fourth state — impartiality — is rather complex; how impartiality can operate as love is by no means obvious. Even if we take impartiality in its sense as serenity and equanimity it still sounds altogether too much like indifference. However, its role can be partly explained as a means for taking selfishness out of unenlightened love and altruism. It has also been suggested that through the practice of impartiality one becomes conscious of the underlying reality that is common to all creatures, and that this consciousness can then take the place of the normal dualistic and unenlightened "I-THOU" relationship. Some people may see in this suggestion a shadow of the idea that the "love of God" can serve as a basis for the love of persons. To this, however, it might be objected that in practice in everyday life it is better, and incidentally more difficult, to love people for themselves than for the sake of something else.
Whatever may be the valid logic of this problem of non-dualistic love, in Mahayana Buddhism impartiality is clearly defined as including loving kindness and sympathetic sorrow. Impartiality is said to ensure that one is equally compassionate to all as if they were — in the Buddhist simile — one's only son, and it is also said that impartial compassion is "the desire that comes of its own accord to do good to all beings without the least craving for their love." Does this sound improbable? Maybe. Certainly it cannot be proved logically that love becomes spontaneous when all the impediments have been removed. We cannot say whether the liberated consciousness is always charitable without choice, and therefore, incidentally, also without moral worth. Nor can we say that all individuals have the same capacity for warmth. Here, as in everything else, personal experience is not only the ground of verification but also the limitation, for we cannot know more about other peoples' feelings than we know about our own.
In the West we seldom make clear distinctions between all these different kinds of love. We use the term to designate a wide variety of feelings and attitudes. Also, through long association with a mawkish and sanctimonious kind of religiosity, the term used in a religious sense can make Westerners squirm with embarrassment. However, we do actually practise love in all four of its Buddhist categories. For example, we know loving kindness, which Buddhism defines as "the love a mother has for her child"; we also experience sympathetic sorrow in the misfortunes and sufferings of others, even though it may be seasoned with a little self-satisfaction, and perhaps occasionally with a pinch of malicious pleasure, as when the neighbour dents his much vaunted new car; and we can feel sympathetic joy at the success and happiness of others, though possibly combined with a certain amount of envy or resentment, except perhaps in the case of those dear to us or who, as in the case of children, are not in competition with us; and lastly, some of us may experience impartial compassion through taking part in some activity concerned with the "loving care of others," though this is often debased by some political or other kind of self-interest. But it is unlikely that any of these forms of love will be entirely free of all traces of the "l-THOU" relationship, not only because it is difficult to practise selfless, non-dualistic love, but also because in the West our theories about love actually encourage a dualistic relationship.
Although non-dualistic, impartial, Buddhist compassion as a form of love is obviously not unknown in the West, it is not widely understood or generally held before us as an ideal. Nevertheless, it is towards the realisation of this perfect form of love that Christianity and Buddhism both converge from their separate starting points and by means of their different systems. Concerning the relationship between Buddhist Compassion and Christian Love, Dom Aelred Graham says: "The Buddhist 'compassion,' it seems to me, has richer implications than all but the supreme form of Christian love. Christianity at the level of practice only rarely overcomes its theoretical dualism between man and God, and between man and man." And he suggests: "Perhaps the Buddhist and Christian ways of loving can meet if the emphasis is thrown on enlightened understanding rather than on benevolence."
According to Buddhism, as we have already noted, enlightened understanding rests upon the realisation of Emptiness. This realisation puts an end to the kind of duality that Dom Aelred Graham suggests can be an impediment in the practice of Christian Love. Perhaps, therefore, the Buddhist theory and experience of Emptiness will indeed prove to be, as suggested earlier in this discussion, the best part of the contribution that Buddhism can make to our Western religious culture.
However, we do not yet know whether the West will accept Emptiness as valid in theory and useful in practice. If it does accept it in principle, then it should note that the importance of direct personal experience can not be exaggerated. Without this experience, the contribution of Buddhism to Western culture may in the end prove ineffective, a mere intellectual gloss. To be really effective, the truth of Emptiness must not only be understood but must also be absorbed as an accepted concept of our Western consciousness through the personal experience and influence of a significant minority.
Buddhism in the West Series:
- Love, Compassion and Enlightenment
- In the Emptiness of Self
- Buddhist Religious Fact
- Buddhism in the West
- Religious Buddha Life
...Read more!
Thursday, March 12, 2009
In the Emptiness of Self
In the Emptiness of Self
Buddhism and The West | Page 4
Roger Gunter-Jones
Admittedly, all the higher religions have acknowledged the truth of Emptiness to the extent of teaching that self-interest and self-assertion are the cause of every kind of vice, and that only by losing one's self will one find one's true life. But none has tackled the problem of selfishness in so radical a fashion as Buddhism. In its essential teaching Buddhism makes no concessions; even Nirvana, the goal, is impersonal. In terms of the Buddhist logic of the four-cornered negation, it cannot be said of one who has realised Nirvana "that he is or is not, that he both is and is not, or that he neither is nor is not." Such a one leaves no trace. In Buddhism there is no salvation for one's self; so long as any feeling of selfhood remains there will be a self that suffers. It is said not merely that the self is subject to suffering, but that all the constituents of body and mind (the "khandhas") are themselves the very substance of suffering. Anyone, therefore, who retains even a vague feeling of identification or association with all, or with any, of these constituents will be a sufferer. As stated in The Cloud of Unknowing, "He suffers who thinks and feels that he is." Only when one no longer feels that one is, when "there is suffering but none that suffers," is the problem of suffering solved.
It should be explained here that it is just as wrong to hold the opinion that one has no self as to hold the contrary opinion that one has a self; the first opinion leads to the error of annihilationism, and the second to the error of eternalism; the "middle way" once again lies between, or rather transcends, the extremes. Both opinions arise from the false idea "I AM." It is this vague feeling "I AM" that creates the idea of self which corresponds to nothing in reality. The importance and difficulty of eliminating this "I AM" feeling is illustrated by a story in the Samyutta-nikaya about a "bhikkhu" (monk) called Khemaka. Khemaka admitted, to the evident distress of his interrogators, that although he could clearly see that within all the constituents of mind and body there was no self or anything pertaining to a self, nevertheless he still had a vague feeling "I AM" (as indeed most people do) and that he must not therefore be regarded as an Arahant (saint or sage). He said this feeling was hard to pin down; it was like the smell of a flower, not easily attributable to any particular part of the flower, but was there in the flower as a whole. However, the discussion proved successful and the story had a happy ending; Khemaka got rid of his feeling "I AM" and became an Arahant, and so incidentally did all his interrogators.
This emphasis on the subject of self has led some Westerners to remark on the paradox that a Buddhist is unusually obsessed with the very thing he says does not exist. But the logic of this emphasis is well summarised by Dogen, the founder of the Japanese Soto Zen school:—
"To study Buddhism is to learn the self; to learn the self is to forget the
self; to forget the self is to be at one with all existence; to be at one with
all existence is to be thoroughly enlightened." According to Buddhist theory, ignorance of Emptiness is at the root of the "I AM" feeling and thus the prime cause of selfishness; it leads to what the West calls "sin," for it sunders us from the source of our being and from others and from the infinite life that surrounds us. Ignorance in this sense is existential rather than intellectual; mere understanding will not overcome it; our thinking, our feeling, and our willing must all be freed from its influence. In practice, therefore, the whole of Buddhism may be regarded as a methodology aimed at the removal of ignorance. The Buddhist way is sometimes summarised in these three short axioms:—
Cease to do evil; Learn to do good; Purify the mind.
In the removal of ignorance, the last of these three axioms is the chief operative factor in relation to which the others stand first of all as necessary auxiliaries and then as natural effects.
The purification of the mind is effected by means of "bhavana" — mental culture, or discipline — which is an aspect of the "eightfold path" that is receiving particular attention in the West from both clergy and laymen. The detailed programme of mental culture has been evolved from the Buddhist analysis of the human predicament and takes into account psychological differences in the individual, such as whether his character is dominated by greed, hatred, or delusion, and so on. Here we can only give the briefest indication of the nature of this programme.
Mental culture is not educational in the accepted sense; its ultimate aim is to bring the mind to the full realisation of Emptiness. The chief means employed are "sati" — mindfulness, or attention, and meditation which is a term used in the West to describe formal periods of sitting in a prescribed posture and in a state of constant and intense awareness. The most typically Buddhist forms of meditation are based on mindfulness and serve two main purposes: first to calm down the psycho-somatic system, and then to develop insight. On the way to the realisation of Emptiness, insight leads to knowledge of our own nature at all levels. This helps to harmonise the different sides of our nature — the mind and the heart, and the inward and the outward. The need for such harmony has long been known in the West but not until recently has much attention been paid to it. It was, for example, for help in achieving this kind of integration that Socrates prayed:—
"Beloved Pan, and all you other Gods who haunt this place, give me beauty in the inward soul; and may the inner and the outer man be at one."
Mindfulness is also to be practisedin everyday life. A Buddhist should at all times be fully aware of what he is thinking, feeling, intending, and doing in the present; regrets about the past, daydreams about the future, and doing one thing while thinking about something else, are all to be avoided. Absent-mindedness and forgetfulness are no excuse for ill-manners and accidents; if you step back thoughtlessly and knock someone under a 'bus,this is not an unfortunate accident butacase of culpable unmindfulness.
Mindfulness, in fact, is the heart of the whole Buddhist system and its importance in combination with other factors, such as energy and investigation, cannot be exaggerated. In the Dhammapada it is said: "Vigilance is the abode of eternal life, thoughtlessness is the abode of death. Those who are vigilant do not die. The thoughtless are as if dead already."
The realisation of Emptiness, which is the chief aim of mental culture, solves not only the problem of suffering, the problem that first motivated the Buddha's search, but also satisfies man's religious needs and provides in its most valid form that positive element without which, as Dr. Radhakrishnan pointed out, the teaching would have had no mandate for a religious revival in ancient India, and we may presume that it would similarly have none today in the West. If Buddhism only solved the problem of suffering it would be a boon but hardly a religion, for among man's legitimate and indeed proper aspirations is the desire to satisfy metaphysical curiosity. As Bernard Shaw put it:— "There is no surer symptom of a sordid and fundamentally stupid mind, however powerful it may be in many practical activities, than a contempt for metaphysics. A person may be supremely able as a mathematician, engineer, parliamentary tactician, or racing bookmaker; but if a person has contemplated the universe all through life without ever asking 'What the devil does it all mean?' he (or she) is one of those people for whom Calvin accounted by placing them in his category of the pre-destinately damned."
In the present context we are relating religion and metaphysics through their mutual concern for our true relationship with the source of our being and with the infinite life that surrounds us. The religious significance of Emptiness can therefore be indicated in philosophical terms.
Buddhist philosophy is mainly concerned with the interpretation of meditational experience, and the interpretations given to the experience of Emptiness are very wide indeed. For example, scholars have found no less than thirty-three different kinds of "emptiness." But before considering what Emptiness is, let us note what it is not. It is not mere absence in the sense that a hare has no horns (using the Buddhist simile); nor is it the extinction of anything in the sense of cessation, as when a fire has gone
out; and finally, it is not just empty space in the sense that a room is said to be empty when all the furniture has been removed. Buddhist Emptiness transcends all such relationships.
The history of the philosophy of Emptiness begins with "egolessness." Early Buddhist philosophy interpreted the experience of egolessness in terms of elements of existence (dhammas) which were apparently given materialistic status. This interpretation is something of an aberration, for it conflicts with the actual experience of Emptiness, which shows, on the contrary, that the universe is not composite; there is only the One (empty, of course, like everything else!) and its infinite variety of self-expression at all points of experience; and each point, as can be realised within oneself, is the centre of the whole of Being at every level of Being, not separated from It and not other than It. But in thus realising that here is the void centre of the One, there is no support for egocentricity, for here is indeed void; here is clearly seen to be empty; yet it is not a mere absence or vacant space, for it is also a plenitude. Nor Is this experience pantheistic or monistic, terms much bandied around with regard to Buddhism, especially Zen, but which do not meet the case, as scholars like Dr. Suzuki have frequently pointed out. (Attempts to define Zen or compare it with something else are particularly futile.) Our essential nature is natureless and therefore infinitely versatile. It is also eternal because timeless, and immeasurable because without location. On the whole it is perhaps easier to experience Emptiness than to comprehend it intellectually, if indeed it is possible to comprehend it at all, for in order to do that we must first define it, that is, limit it, and Emptiness has no limitations.
The real importance of the doctrine of Emptiness lies in its practical aim which is the achievement of spiritual freedom through direct personal experience. The doctrine works by demonstrating that everything which is not absolute spirit is unreal. That is to say, it reveals the spirit by removing what obscures it and thus liberating us from change, impermanence and hankering. It is all too seldom remembered, or even understood in the first place, that Emptiness is introduced into Buddhism not as a form of reality but only as a means of realising the nature of reality, for reality is not a thing. It is for this reason that one of the forms of Emptiness is said to be "the emptiness of Emptiness."
In far too many presentations of Buddhism, both traditional and modern, it is too readily assumed that ordinary intelligent adults cannot easily have existential experience of Emptiness. But there is a modern approach which is having results that contradict this assumption. Many Westerners today, through the writings and teachings of Douglas Harding'5 and others with similar views, are discovering that the experience of the emptiness that lies at the centre of our world is not difficult to achieve, and that it brings with it the experience of Emptiness in the larger sense. However, it should perhaps be noted that this modern approach differs from the traditional path in one important respect; it by-passes the various levels of consciousness. It is therefore, as Douglas Harding puts it, only a down payment that ensures instant delivery of the goods which must nevertheless be paid for in full by instalments later. As a matter of fact, for most people, the fully effective realisation of Emptiness in thinking, feeling, willing, and acting, may take as long to accomplish by the modern as by the traditional way. All the same, by the modern way we do at least get delivery of Emptiness now, instead of only a promise of it, and many immediate benefits follow from the ability to experience Emptiness at will.
More in the Buddhism and The West series:
...Read more!
Buddhism and The West | Page 4
Roger Gunter-Jones
Admittedly, all the higher religions have acknowledged the truth of Emptiness to the extent of teaching that self-interest and self-assertion are the cause of every kind of vice, and that only by losing one's self will one find one's true life. But none has tackled the problem of selfishness in so radical a fashion as Buddhism. In its essential teaching Buddhism makes no concessions; even Nirvana, the goal, is impersonal. In terms of the Buddhist logic of the four-cornered negation, it cannot be said of one who has realised Nirvana "that he is or is not, that he both is and is not, or that he neither is nor is not." Such a one leaves no trace. In Buddhism there is no salvation for one's self; so long as any feeling of selfhood remains there will be a self that suffers. It is said not merely that the self is subject to suffering, but that all the constituents of body and mind (the "khandhas") are themselves the very substance of suffering. Anyone, therefore, who retains even a vague feeling of identification or association with all, or with any, of these constituents will be a sufferer. As stated in The Cloud of Unknowing, "He suffers who thinks and feels that he is." Only when one no longer feels that one is, when "there is suffering but none that suffers," is the problem of suffering solved.
It should be explained here that it is just as wrong to hold the opinion that one has no self as to hold the contrary opinion that one has a self; the first opinion leads to the error of annihilationism, and the second to the error of eternalism; the "middle way" once again lies between, or rather transcends, the extremes. Both opinions arise from the false idea "I AM." It is this vague feeling "I AM" that creates the idea of self which corresponds to nothing in reality. The importance and difficulty of eliminating this "I AM" feeling is illustrated by a story in the Samyutta-nikaya about a "bhikkhu" (monk) called Khemaka. Khemaka admitted, to the evident distress of his interrogators, that although he could clearly see that within all the constituents of mind and body there was no self or anything pertaining to a self, nevertheless he still had a vague feeling "I AM" (as indeed most people do) and that he must not therefore be regarded as an Arahant (saint or sage). He said this feeling was hard to pin down; it was like the smell of a flower, not easily attributable to any particular part of the flower, but was there in the flower as a whole. However, the discussion proved successful and the story had a happy ending; Khemaka got rid of his feeling "I AM" and became an Arahant, and so incidentally did all his interrogators.
This emphasis on the subject of self has led some Westerners to remark on the paradox that a Buddhist is unusually obsessed with the very thing he says does not exist. But the logic of this emphasis is well summarised by Dogen, the founder of the Japanese Soto Zen school:—
"To study Buddhism is to learn the self; to learn the self is to forget the
self; to forget the self is to be at one with all existence; to be at one with
all existence is to be thoroughly enlightened." According to Buddhist theory, ignorance of Emptiness is at the root of the "I AM" feeling and thus the prime cause of selfishness; it leads to what the West calls "sin," for it sunders us from the source of our being and from others and from the infinite life that surrounds us. Ignorance in this sense is existential rather than intellectual; mere understanding will not overcome it; our thinking, our feeling, and our willing must all be freed from its influence. In practice, therefore, the whole of Buddhism may be regarded as a methodology aimed at the removal of ignorance. The Buddhist way is sometimes summarised in these three short axioms:—
Cease to do evil; Learn to do good; Purify the mind.
In the removal of ignorance, the last of these three axioms is the chief operative factor in relation to which the others stand first of all as necessary auxiliaries and then as natural effects.
The purification of the mind is effected by means of "bhavana" — mental culture, or discipline — which is an aspect of the "eightfold path" that is receiving particular attention in the West from both clergy and laymen. The detailed programme of mental culture has been evolved from the Buddhist analysis of the human predicament and takes into account psychological differences in the individual, such as whether his character is dominated by greed, hatred, or delusion, and so on. Here we can only give the briefest indication of the nature of this programme.
Mental culture is not educational in the accepted sense; its ultimate aim is to bring the mind to the full realisation of Emptiness. The chief means employed are "sati" — mindfulness, or attention, and meditation which is a term used in the West to describe formal periods of sitting in a prescribed posture and in a state of constant and intense awareness. The most typically Buddhist forms of meditation are based on mindfulness and serve two main purposes: first to calm down the psycho-somatic system, and then to develop insight. On the way to the realisation of Emptiness, insight leads to knowledge of our own nature at all levels. This helps to harmonise the different sides of our nature — the mind and the heart, and the inward and the outward. The need for such harmony has long been known in the West but not until recently has much attention been paid to it. It was, for example, for help in achieving this kind of integration that Socrates prayed:—
"Beloved Pan, and all you other Gods who haunt this place, give me beauty in the inward soul; and may the inner and the outer man be at one."
Mindfulness is also to be practisedin everyday life. A Buddhist should at all times be fully aware of what he is thinking, feeling, intending, and doing in the present; regrets about the past, daydreams about the future, and doing one thing while thinking about something else, are all to be avoided. Absent-mindedness and forgetfulness are no excuse for ill-manners and accidents; if you step back thoughtlessly and knock someone under a 'bus,this is not an unfortunate accident butacase of culpable unmindfulness.
Mindfulness, in fact, is the heart of the whole Buddhist system and its importance in combination with other factors, such as energy and investigation, cannot be exaggerated. In the Dhammapada it is said: "Vigilance is the abode of eternal life, thoughtlessness is the abode of death. Those who are vigilant do not die. The thoughtless are as if dead already."
The realisation of Emptiness, which is the chief aim of mental culture, solves not only the problem of suffering, the problem that first motivated the Buddha's search, but also satisfies man's religious needs and provides in its most valid form that positive element without which, as Dr. Radhakrishnan pointed out, the teaching would have had no mandate for a religious revival in ancient India, and we may presume that it would similarly have none today in the West. If Buddhism only solved the problem of suffering it would be a boon but hardly a religion, for among man's legitimate and indeed proper aspirations is the desire to satisfy metaphysical curiosity. As Bernard Shaw put it:— "There is no surer symptom of a sordid and fundamentally stupid mind, however powerful it may be in many practical activities, than a contempt for metaphysics. A person may be supremely able as a mathematician, engineer, parliamentary tactician, or racing bookmaker; but if a person has contemplated the universe all through life without ever asking 'What the devil does it all mean?' he (or she) is one of those people for whom Calvin accounted by placing them in his category of the pre-destinately damned."
In the present context we are relating religion and metaphysics through their mutual concern for our true relationship with the source of our being and with the infinite life that surrounds us. The religious significance of Emptiness can therefore be indicated in philosophical terms.
Buddhist philosophy is mainly concerned with the interpretation of meditational experience, and the interpretations given to the experience of Emptiness are very wide indeed. For example, scholars have found no less than thirty-three different kinds of "emptiness." But before considering what Emptiness is, let us note what it is not. It is not mere absence in the sense that a hare has no horns (using the Buddhist simile); nor is it the extinction of anything in the sense of cessation, as when a fire has gone
out; and finally, it is not just empty space in the sense that a room is said to be empty when all the furniture has been removed. Buddhist Emptiness transcends all such relationships.
The history of the philosophy of Emptiness begins with "egolessness." Early Buddhist philosophy interpreted the experience of egolessness in terms of elements of existence (dhammas) which were apparently given materialistic status. This interpretation is something of an aberration, for it conflicts with the actual experience of Emptiness, which shows, on the contrary, that the universe is not composite; there is only the One (empty, of course, like everything else!) and its infinite variety of self-expression at all points of experience; and each point, as can be realised within oneself, is the centre of the whole of Being at every level of Being, not separated from It and not other than It. But in thus realising that here is the void centre of the One, there is no support for egocentricity, for here is indeed void; here is clearly seen to be empty; yet it is not a mere absence or vacant space, for it is also a plenitude. Nor Is this experience pantheistic or monistic, terms much bandied around with regard to Buddhism, especially Zen, but which do not meet the case, as scholars like Dr. Suzuki have frequently pointed out. (Attempts to define Zen or compare it with something else are particularly futile.) Our essential nature is natureless and therefore infinitely versatile. It is also eternal because timeless, and immeasurable because without location. On the whole it is perhaps easier to experience Emptiness than to comprehend it intellectually, if indeed it is possible to comprehend it at all, for in order to do that we must first define it, that is, limit it, and Emptiness has no limitations.
The real importance of the doctrine of Emptiness lies in its practical aim which is the achievement of spiritual freedom through direct personal experience. The doctrine works by demonstrating that everything which is not absolute spirit is unreal. That is to say, it reveals the spirit by removing what obscures it and thus liberating us from change, impermanence and hankering. It is all too seldom remembered, or even understood in the first place, that Emptiness is introduced into Buddhism not as a form of reality but only as a means of realising the nature of reality, for reality is not a thing. It is for this reason that one of the forms of Emptiness is said to be "the emptiness of Emptiness."
In far too many presentations of Buddhism, both traditional and modern, it is too readily assumed that ordinary intelligent adults cannot easily have existential experience of Emptiness. But there is a modern approach which is having results that contradict this assumption. Many Westerners today, through the writings and teachings of Douglas Harding'5 and others with similar views, are discovering that the experience of the emptiness that lies at the centre of our world is not difficult to achieve, and that it brings with it the experience of Emptiness in the larger sense. However, it should perhaps be noted that this modern approach differs from the traditional path in one important respect; it by-passes the various levels of consciousness. It is therefore, as Douglas Harding puts it, only a down payment that ensures instant delivery of the goods which must nevertheless be paid for in full by instalments later. As a matter of fact, for most people, the fully effective realisation of Emptiness in thinking, feeling, willing, and acting, may take as long to accomplish by the modern as by the traditional way. All the same, by the modern way we do at least get delivery of Emptiness now, instead of only a promise of it, and many immediate benefits follow from the ability to experience Emptiness at will.
More in the Buddhism and The West series:
- Love, Compassion and Enlightenment
- In the Emptiness of Self
- Buddhist Religious Fact
- Buddhism in the West
- Religious Buddha Life
...Read more!
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Buddhist Religious Fact
Buddhist Religious Fact
Buddhism and the West | Page 3
Roger Gunter-Jones
But at the same time and perhaps of more importance, there began to arise a greater interest in Buddhism in non-Buddhist circles for purely religious reasons. Here the term "religious" is being used in the sense given to it by William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience. There he laid down as criteria for valid religion: philosophical reasonableness, moral helpfulness, and immediate luminousness — terms which can easily be correlated with the three components of the "eightfold path," namely, "wisdom," "morality," and "mental discipline." Referring to these criteria, Dom Aelred Graham has suggested that they are what in effect are now being sought. He quotes the Chairman of an American university religious department as saying that all over America there is an increasing interest in religion combined with a decreasing interest in the Church, and commenting on this statement he says: "There can be little doubt that the scientific temper of the age with its emphasis on control by evidence and the test of experience, in contrast to religious insistence on mystery and blind faith, is a formidable challenge to any merely authoritative presentation of Christian belief. Science has been well described as a 'process of discovery rather than a compendium of data.' For many, this description could just as easily apply to the personal religious quest."10 These remarks about authoritative religion and the personal quest draw attention to two important characteristics of the Buddhist way: the first, that it is emphatically not an authoritative system, and the second, that it is most decidedly a personal inward journey of self-discovery.
These two characteristics go a long way towards explaining the welcome Buddhism has received, especially from the young, in a culture which many people believe to be spiritually bankrupt. The young of today seem to be more conscious of this spiritual poverty and more affected by it than their elders; they sit, as Dr. H. Saddhatissa has put it, "in the midst of the nuclear arms race" and "surrounded by their bingo-crazy relations."" Whether the young, when no longer young, will retain this interest and awareness is another matter. Where, for instance, are the "beats," the "hippies," and the "flower people" of yesteryear? Gone — in the idiom of the "pop" song — to the suburbs, every one! Nevertheless, the young in their present attitude represent the natural outcome of the convergence we noted earlier — the rejection of the old, and the acceptance of the new. They are evidently seeking for a valid and vital religious basis on which to construct their lives. Some of them accept one or other of the Eastern religions, Buddhism for example, but many seek only guidance without wishing to commit themselves to any particular sect.
The nature of this spiritual regeneration in the West — in so far as it exists — suggests the birth of something new rather than the revival of something old. Evidence in support of this possibility is the preference shown for the non-theistic approach. Professor Ninian Smart, for example, has noted that ... "one of the reasons why Buddhism and some other religious movements have attracted recent interest and concern in the West, and especially among the young, is precisely their non-theistic nature ..." and that "... the mood is introvertive, disillusioned with the personalistic approach, among those who have experimented with the teachings and methods of the Eastern world."'
Buddhist non-theism contrasts with Christian theism not only as a fact in itself but also in the resulting absence of speculation and belief. Buddhism rests firmly on the facts of experience and on the logic of cause and effect. In Buddhist philosophy, cause and effect takes the form of the interdependence of events, a short formula for which runs as follows:
"When this is, that is; This arising, that arises; When this is not, that is not; This ceasing, that ceases."
Using this principle, the cause of suffering is traced to "craving," and the cause of "craving" to "ignorance." If Buddhism ultimately refers back to the singleness of the fact of life itself, then it does so without speculating about the nature of the fact. The Buddha refused to discuss matters beyond the comprehension of his listeners, or which were not useful to the holy life. Such discussion, he said, "is not conducive to aversion, detachment, cessation, tranquillity, deep penetration, full realisation of Nirvana." Anyone who insisted on having metaphysical assurances before he would venture on the way, he compared to a man wounded by a poisoned arrow who refused to receive treatment until his friends had found out all about the arrow and the man who had shot it. As the Buddha pertinently remarked, the man would die before hisfrlendscould get the comprehensive report he demanded.
Turning to God-belief as a specific form of speculation, we find naturally enough that Buddhism is far less concerned with this question than Christianity. In fact, in Buddhism God-belief has no essential part to play at all, though it is raised in discussion from time to time incidentally, and consequently we find that several aspects of it are dealt with by the Buddha.13 Some say that the Buddha neither affirms nor denies the existence of God. However, it is truer to say that he is less concerned with the question of God's existence than with the fact that Enlightenment transcends God-belief, which is in any case incompatible with the way of Enlightenment; for the way, as we have already noted, is one of discovery, not of belief. Buddhism, in fact, does not place the Buddhist in the position where the question of God arises as a necessary factor. Hence, although faith is an important factor in Buddhism, it does not take the form of belief in God or of intellectual assent to creeds; it is primarily a form of trust in the efficacy of the way, a trust that is justified as one proceeds, step by step. First, we hear about the "truth of suffering," then we look around and within and find that it is true. Next, we proceed to the "truth of the arising of suffering" and find that it also is true. And so on. Other forms of faith may arise naturally from experience; for example, we have faith in the fact that there is a self-validating quality about truth itself which requires no justification. We may also experience faith in life itself in the sense of its essential Tightness and sanctity, the kind of faith that so powerfully affected Tolstoy. But at no time does Buddhism make demands on our credulity; instead, it has always given priority to personal experience and self-reliance, for which reason it is sometimes said to be a "come-and-see" teaching.
This principle of seeing for yourself is well illustrated by the advice the Buddha gave to some people called the Kalamas who were perplexed by the many conflicting doctrines taught by men who all claimed to be right. The Buddha said, "When you yourselves know that certain things are unwholesome, and wrong, and bad, then give them up.... And when you know for yourselves that certain things are wholesome, and good, then accept them and follow them." The sayings of the Buddha include many similar injunctions; for example, on his deathbed he advised his followers to be "lamps unto themselves" and to accept no one else as an authority. At every stage of the way the principle applies that the final certitude, the ground of verification, must be one's own experience.
So far, in reporting on Buddhism's reception in the West we have tried to indicate its general compatibility with the temper of the present age and have noted some of the characteristics that appeal to the modern Western consciousness; we have made no mention, as now we must, of some of its shortcomings. In fact, we have been dealing with unperverted Buddhism, as it were, and must now confess that the teaching does not always, or indeed often, appear in a pure and unperverted form. In addition to the usual institutional drawbacks common to most faiths, some forms of Buddhism also exhibit lapses from integrity and good sense of a kind found in many other religions. Some of these are traditionally justified as "expedient means" for the use of less gifted followers of the way. But the history of Buddhism brings to light such astonishing deviations from what is generally believed to be the original teaching of the Buddha, that good sense suggests other reasons. It is, for instance, inconceivable that the Buddha would have given utterance to some of the more fanciful Mahayana sutras, magnificent though some of them may be, or demonstrated some of the Tantric sexual postures, whatever the benefit that is alleged to be derived from them. Such things are surely the fruit of the mind's natural exuberance rather than the result of someone's good intentions towards the dim-witted. Objection is raised not so much against the means as such as against the supposition that they are necessary when it is perfectly obvious that they are not. In relation to the principal aims of Buddhism many of these developments are little more than ego-gratifying diversions; one might just as well climb mountains or go sailing.
Many of these developments can be accounted for by the fact that Buddhism, like other faiths, has been subjected to various corrupting influences. For example, it has its own form of scholasticism, has absorbed local superstitions and practices, has had to harmonise with racial and national idiosyncrasies, and has been manipulated to meet the needs of governments in search of legitimation and for other political purposes. We can trace its progress from the primitive message to the theistic, and sometimes theocratic, forms it later adopted — as, for example, in Tibet — and then back again by way of some of the early Zen sects to a semblance of the primitive ideal of personal experience and self-reliance. An immense variety of forms exists today, ranging from the comparatively authentic and ancient Theravada in Ceylon, to the comparatively inauthentic and modern pseudo-religious structures with strong political affiliations, such as the Soka Gakkai, in Japan.
Obviously, if we are to extract from this great mass of traditional material Buddhism's own unique contribution to the Western religious process, we must ignore not only what is superfluous but also what can be found just as easily elsewhere. For example, most traditions can supply emotional outlets and vicarious salvation and can offer the paths of devotion and works to those who want them. But Buddhism is essentially a path of self-knowledge and self-reliance, and its essence is therefore more likely to be found at the centre and near its origin than at the periphery and in its scholastic subtleties.
There is general agreement among Buddhist scholars14 that the Theravada doctrine of Anatta — egolessness, and its highly developed Mahayana equivalent, the doctrine of Sunyata — emptiness, form the core of Buddhist teaching and that Buddhism stands unique among the religions of the world by reason of these doctrines. Consequently, that which is unique, relevant, and valid in the contribution which Buddhism is now making to the Western religious scene, derives from these two doctrines. And it also follows that the Buddhist process of convergence on the singleness of fact — the truth inherent in life itself, which was the proposition we started out with, is based on these doctrines. Accordingly, these must now primarily engage our attention. For convenience, we shall refer to these two doctrines in the singular as the doctrine of Emptiness.
In confining our attention to the central tradition of Buddhism and in particular to its basic truth of Emptiness, we are not dismissing as totally irrelevant to the needs of the West all the various doctrines that have generally been regarded as essentials of the teaching. The intention is only to emphasise that Buddhism in any authentic form derives its power and validity from this basic truth of Emptiness and in this respect is unique among the religions of the world, and that by reason of this unique characteristic it has something of importance to say to the West which probably cannot be better said by any other tradition.
More in the Buddhism and the West series:
...Read more!
Buddhism and the West | Page 3
Roger Gunter-Jones
But at the same time and perhaps of more importance, there began to arise a greater interest in Buddhism in non-Buddhist circles for purely religious reasons. Here the term "religious" is being used in the sense given to it by William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience. There he laid down as criteria for valid religion: philosophical reasonableness, moral helpfulness, and immediate luminousness — terms which can easily be correlated with the three components of the "eightfold path," namely, "wisdom," "morality," and "mental discipline." Referring to these criteria, Dom Aelred Graham has suggested that they are what in effect are now being sought. He quotes the Chairman of an American university religious department as saying that all over America there is an increasing interest in religion combined with a decreasing interest in the Church, and commenting on this statement he says: "There can be little doubt that the scientific temper of the age with its emphasis on control by evidence and the test of experience, in contrast to religious insistence on mystery and blind faith, is a formidable challenge to any merely authoritative presentation of Christian belief. Science has been well described as a 'process of discovery rather than a compendium of data.' For many, this description could just as easily apply to the personal religious quest."10 These remarks about authoritative religion and the personal quest draw attention to two important characteristics of the Buddhist way: the first, that it is emphatically not an authoritative system, and the second, that it is most decidedly a personal inward journey of self-discovery.
These two characteristics go a long way towards explaining the welcome Buddhism has received, especially from the young, in a culture which many people believe to be spiritually bankrupt. The young of today seem to be more conscious of this spiritual poverty and more affected by it than their elders; they sit, as Dr. H. Saddhatissa has put it, "in the midst of the nuclear arms race" and "surrounded by their bingo-crazy relations."" Whether the young, when no longer young, will retain this interest and awareness is another matter. Where, for instance, are the "beats," the "hippies," and the "flower people" of yesteryear? Gone — in the idiom of the "pop" song — to the suburbs, every one! Nevertheless, the young in their present attitude represent the natural outcome of the convergence we noted earlier — the rejection of the old, and the acceptance of the new. They are evidently seeking for a valid and vital religious basis on which to construct their lives. Some of them accept one or other of the Eastern religions, Buddhism for example, but many seek only guidance without wishing to commit themselves to any particular sect.
The nature of this spiritual regeneration in the West — in so far as it exists — suggests the birth of something new rather than the revival of something old. Evidence in support of this possibility is the preference shown for the non-theistic approach. Professor Ninian Smart, for example, has noted that ... "one of the reasons why Buddhism and some other religious movements have attracted recent interest and concern in the West, and especially among the young, is precisely their non-theistic nature ..." and that "... the mood is introvertive, disillusioned with the personalistic approach, among those who have experimented with the teachings and methods of the Eastern world."'
Buddhist non-theism contrasts with Christian theism not only as a fact in itself but also in the resulting absence of speculation and belief. Buddhism rests firmly on the facts of experience and on the logic of cause and effect. In Buddhist philosophy, cause and effect takes the form of the interdependence of events, a short formula for which runs as follows:
"When this is, that is; This arising, that arises; When this is not, that is not; This ceasing, that ceases."
Using this principle, the cause of suffering is traced to "craving," and the cause of "craving" to "ignorance." If Buddhism ultimately refers back to the singleness of the fact of life itself, then it does so without speculating about the nature of the fact. The Buddha refused to discuss matters beyond the comprehension of his listeners, or which were not useful to the holy life. Such discussion, he said, "is not conducive to aversion, detachment, cessation, tranquillity, deep penetration, full realisation of Nirvana." Anyone who insisted on having metaphysical assurances before he would venture on the way, he compared to a man wounded by a poisoned arrow who refused to receive treatment until his friends had found out all about the arrow and the man who had shot it. As the Buddha pertinently remarked, the man would die before hisfrlendscould get the comprehensive report he demanded.
Turning to God-belief as a specific form of speculation, we find naturally enough that Buddhism is far less concerned with this question than Christianity. In fact, in Buddhism God-belief has no essential part to play at all, though it is raised in discussion from time to time incidentally, and consequently we find that several aspects of it are dealt with by the Buddha.13 Some say that the Buddha neither affirms nor denies the existence of God. However, it is truer to say that he is less concerned with the question of God's existence than with the fact that Enlightenment transcends God-belief, which is in any case incompatible with the way of Enlightenment; for the way, as we have already noted, is one of discovery, not of belief. Buddhism, in fact, does not place the Buddhist in the position where the question of God arises as a necessary factor. Hence, although faith is an important factor in Buddhism, it does not take the form of belief in God or of intellectual assent to creeds; it is primarily a form of trust in the efficacy of the way, a trust that is justified as one proceeds, step by step. First, we hear about the "truth of suffering," then we look around and within and find that it is true. Next, we proceed to the "truth of the arising of suffering" and find that it also is true. And so on. Other forms of faith may arise naturally from experience; for example, we have faith in the fact that there is a self-validating quality about truth itself which requires no justification. We may also experience faith in life itself in the sense of its essential Tightness and sanctity, the kind of faith that so powerfully affected Tolstoy. But at no time does Buddhism make demands on our credulity; instead, it has always given priority to personal experience and self-reliance, for which reason it is sometimes said to be a "come-and-see" teaching.
This principle of seeing for yourself is well illustrated by the advice the Buddha gave to some people called the Kalamas who were perplexed by the many conflicting doctrines taught by men who all claimed to be right. The Buddha said, "When you yourselves know that certain things are unwholesome, and wrong, and bad, then give them up.... And when you know for yourselves that certain things are wholesome, and good, then accept them and follow them." The sayings of the Buddha include many similar injunctions; for example, on his deathbed he advised his followers to be "lamps unto themselves" and to accept no one else as an authority. At every stage of the way the principle applies that the final certitude, the ground of verification, must be one's own experience.
So far, in reporting on Buddhism's reception in the West we have tried to indicate its general compatibility with the temper of the present age and have noted some of the characteristics that appeal to the modern Western consciousness; we have made no mention, as now we must, of some of its shortcomings. In fact, we have been dealing with unperverted Buddhism, as it were, and must now confess that the teaching does not always, or indeed often, appear in a pure and unperverted form. In addition to the usual institutional drawbacks common to most faiths, some forms of Buddhism also exhibit lapses from integrity and good sense of a kind found in many other religions. Some of these are traditionally justified as "expedient means" for the use of less gifted followers of the way. But the history of Buddhism brings to light such astonishing deviations from what is generally believed to be the original teaching of the Buddha, that good sense suggests other reasons. It is, for instance, inconceivable that the Buddha would have given utterance to some of the more fanciful Mahayana sutras, magnificent though some of them may be, or demonstrated some of the Tantric sexual postures, whatever the benefit that is alleged to be derived from them. Such things are surely the fruit of the mind's natural exuberance rather than the result of someone's good intentions towards the dim-witted. Objection is raised not so much against the means as such as against the supposition that they are necessary when it is perfectly obvious that they are not. In relation to the principal aims of Buddhism many of these developments are little more than ego-gratifying diversions; one might just as well climb mountains or go sailing.
Many of these developments can be accounted for by the fact that Buddhism, like other faiths, has been subjected to various corrupting influences. For example, it has its own form of scholasticism, has absorbed local superstitions and practices, has had to harmonise with racial and national idiosyncrasies, and has been manipulated to meet the needs of governments in search of legitimation and for other political purposes. We can trace its progress from the primitive message to the theistic, and sometimes theocratic, forms it later adopted — as, for example, in Tibet — and then back again by way of some of the early Zen sects to a semblance of the primitive ideal of personal experience and self-reliance. An immense variety of forms exists today, ranging from the comparatively authentic and ancient Theravada in Ceylon, to the comparatively inauthentic and modern pseudo-religious structures with strong political affiliations, such as the Soka Gakkai, in Japan.
Obviously, if we are to extract from this great mass of traditional material Buddhism's own unique contribution to the Western religious process, we must ignore not only what is superfluous but also what can be found just as easily elsewhere. For example, most traditions can supply emotional outlets and vicarious salvation and can offer the paths of devotion and works to those who want them. But Buddhism is essentially a path of self-knowledge and self-reliance, and its essence is therefore more likely to be found at the centre and near its origin than at the periphery and in its scholastic subtleties.
There is general agreement among Buddhist scholars14 that the Theravada doctrine of Anatta — egolessness, and its highly developed Mahayana equivalent, the doctrine of Sunyata — emptiness, form the core of Buddhist teaching and that Buddhism stands unique among the religions of the world by reason of these doctrines. Consequently, that which is unique, relevant, and valid in the contribution which Buddhism is now making to the Western religious scene, derives from these two doctrines. And it also follows that the Buddhist process of convergence on the singleness of fact — the truth inherent in life itself, which was the proposition we started out with, is based on these doctrines. Accordingly, these must now primarily engage our attention. For convenience, we shall refer to these two doctrines in the singular as the doctrine of Emptiness.
In confining our attention to the central tradition of Buddhism and in particular to its basic truth of Emptiness, we are not dismissing as totally irrelevant to the needs of the West all the various doctrines that have generally been regarded as essentials of the teaching. The intention is only to emphasise that Buddhism in any authentic form derives its power and validity from this basic truth of Emptiness and in this respect is unique among the religions of the world, and that by reason of this unique characteristic it has something of importance to say to the West which probably cannot be better said by any other tradition.
More in the Buddhism and the West series:
- Love, Compassion and Enlightenment
- In the Emptiness of Self
- Buddhist Religious Fact
- Buddhism in the West
- Religious Buddha Life
...Read more!
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Buddhism in the West
Buddhism in the West - Page 2
Roger Gunther-Jones
It Is probably far too early for anyone to attempt to forecast what lasting effects Buddhism may have on Western culture in general, for its influence so far is only germinal, and further growth and development are not yet assured. However, if we trace the course of Buddhism in the West, noting the changes of Western opinion that have accompanied its progress, we may achieve as a more limited objective an understanding as to why it has been gaining favour among us. What seems to have been taking place, as I shall try to show, is a gradual convergence of two tendencies: on the one hand, the West's increasing understanding and appreciation of the nature of Eastern faiths, such as Buddhism, and on the other, the West's growing disenchantment with its own religious heritage. We now seem to be at the point where these two tendencies show signs of merging into a single movement of religious regeneration, not necessarily Buddhist or even Eastern, though Buddhism and other Eastern faiths may have a part to play In it, but with motivations and aspirations similar to those of Buddhism, and sometimes reaching out for the kind of methodology which Buddhism can supply.
Some of the earliest Western contacts with Buddhism were made by Jesuit missionaries in the sixteenth century. The records of their activities in China and Japan show that in spite of their position as pioneers in the field of Buddhist studies they had a fine appreciation of Buddhism, at any rate as encountered in those countries. Naturally, there were many aspects of the teaching and practice of the Buddhists which were uncongenial to them. Nevertheless, they had a high regard for the "bonzes" (priests), for their spirituality, and for the level of Buddhist culture generally. St. Francis Xavier wrote: "I have spoken with several learned bonzes, especially with one who is held in high esteem here by everyone, as much for his knowledge, conduct and dignity as for his great age of eighty years. His name is Ninshitsu, which in Japanese signifies 'Heart of Truth.' He is among them as a Bishop, and if his name is appropriate, he is indeed a blessed man.... It Is a marvel how good a friend this man is to me."1 He also reported of the Japanese in general that "in their culture, their social usage, and their mores, they surpass the Spaniards so greatly that one must be ashamed to say so."
However, the Jesuit interest in Buddhism was primarily in support of their missionary effort, in which, incidentally, they had some success. Two and a half centuries later, when Schopenhauer speaks out in favour of Buddhism, he does so without condescension and in order to express his agreement with its principles. The consonance of Schopenhauer's views and Buddhist principles is all the more interesting when we remember that in the first instance he arrived at his own viewpoint quite independently of promptings from Buddhist or other Indian sources. He thought he had found in Buddhism support for his own theories and world view. His works contain many passages which either refer directly to Buddhism or can be correlated with it.3 It seemed to him that the Buddhist process of self-realisation and liberation from self-will carried on from the point where his own understanding left off. "I have taught", he said, "what sainthood is, but I myself am no saint." Even though some people, from the vantage point of their own greater knowledge, now criticise his understanding of Buddhism, it is remarkable that he acquired as good an understanding of it as he did with such slender resources, for in his day Pali and Sanskrit scholarship was in its infancy, and very few Buddhist scriptures were available in translation. Perhaps from his own theories he read into Buddhism an emphasis on the will that is not there. The will certainly has an important place in Buddhism, but one that is subordinate to discernment. For Buddhism places more reliance on the natural morality and responses of the enlightened and liberated consciousness than on unenlightened self-coercion. Nevertheless, Charles Muses4 has recently given support to Schopenhauer's views on the will and Buddhism, and shows that the Lankavatara Sutra of the Mahayana canon (a sutra unknown to Schopenhauer) completes Schopenhauer's thought with regard to logic, metaphysics, and ethics. As an example, for purposes of comparison, he quotes from paragraph 71 of
The World as Will and Representation:
"In those who have overcome the world, in whom the will, having attained to perfect self-knowledge, found itself again in all, and then freely denied itself... we shall see that peace which is above all reason, that perfect calm of spirit, that deep rest, that inviolable confidence and serenity, the mere reflection of which in the countenance ... is an entire and certain gospel."
Muses then states that the Lankavatara Sutra lends its confirmation with clarifying detail. Among several examples, the following indicates the kind of confirmation and clarification he had in mind:
"But with the Bodhisattva's attainment [Bodhisattva means 'enlightenment being'] ... there comes the 'turning about' within his deepest seat of consciousness from self-centred egoism to universal compassion for all beings. After experiencing the 'turning about' ... he will be able to enter the realm of consciousness that lies beyond that of the mind-system.
The case of Schopenhauer has been chosen as an early and noteworthy example of the acceptance of Buddhist views as distinct from mere academic interest in them. But there were many other nineteenth century writers, such as Emerson and Tolstoy (in addition, of course, to Buddhist scholars), who contributed to the general awareness of the nature and value of Buddhism and other Eastern faiths. In some ways Tolstoy's views are typical of the period and represent the state of convergence at this time. On the one hand, he repudiated Church-Christianity, vehemently condemning its perversion of the truth and love of power; on the other hand, while welcoming Eastern faiths because they avoided the worst of the Church's vices and crimes and demonstrated that organised Christianity had no exclusive rights where the highest truth is concerned, he could not quite accept their teachings as the equal of Christ's original and unperverted message, as he himself understood it.
By the end of the nineteenth century a far wider circle of scholars and the general public had begun to appreciate the merits of Buddhism as a non-theistic and non-authoritarian religion. By now Buddhism had in fact become widely recognised as a philosophical and ethical system that did not conflict with modern scientific knowledge and common sense. In this it contrasted sharply with the tendency of Western religion to resist the advance of modern knowledge as, for instance, in the attempt to refute the premises of Darwin's theory of Evolution. (A pleasing example of this attempt was the suggestion that God had put fossils into rocks in order to deceive human beings.) The words of T. H. Huxley give expression to a view of Buddhism which seems to have been widely held at this time:
"... a system which knows no God in the Western sense, which denies a soul to man, which counts the belief in immortality a blunder and the hope of it a sin, which refuses any efficacy to prayer and sacrifice, which bids men to look to nothing but their own efforts for salvation, which in its original purity knew nothing of vows of obedience and never sought the aid of the secular arm, yet spread over a considerable moiety of the old world with marvellous rapidity and is still, with whatever base admixture of foreign superstitions, the dominant creed of a large fraction of mankind" (Romanes Lecture, 1893).
Commenting on this view, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan says: "Given the psychological conditions of the time (i.e., in India), the reception of the Buddha's message would be unthinkable, if it were negative. For anyone who is familiar with the religious environment of India it is impossible to look upon a philosophy of negation as the mandate of a religious revival."
Certainly, the late nineteenth century assessment of Buddhism as represented by Huxley's words can now be seen as an expression of the rising tide of positivism and materialism and to that extent misses the principal characteristic of the Buddha's way which in this, as in other respects, is a middle way between extremes, both in theory and in practice, hence neither materialistic nor idealistic, and neither theistic nor atheistic. In some of its aspects Huxley's view can now be cited as a case of Buddhism being admired largely for what it is not. Few scholars today would describe Buddhism in such terms as he used. Nevertheless, in some respects his view can be upheld, and it represents an important stage in the process of convergence between the acceptance of the new religious viewpoint and the rejection of the old.
Naturally, there were many views that differed from those given as examples so far. Some of these testified to the extreme difficulty of shaking off the Christian ethos of one's natural background, even with strenuous conscious efforts. For example, some professed Western Buddhists obstinately insisted, and some still do insist, against all the weight of evidence, in bringing into the teaching a ghost of the Western soul in the form of a "higher self," a kind of immortal entity existing in its own right. A detailed argument on this point would be out of place here. At present it is sufficient to note that whether or not there is in fact anything to which the term "self" can be applied, the way of the Buddha, as already noted, not only avoids this supposition, or hypothesis, but actually teaches quite otherwise. The whole system derives from, and depends for its efficacy on, the negation of anything in experience to which the term "self" could legitimately be applied; if any notion of self arises in consciousness, instantly the question must be asked, "To what or to whom does this notion occur?"
From the earliest European encounters with Buddhism until now, the teaching of the Buddha has been presented to the West in many conflicting forms ranging from extreme nineteenth century scientific Buddhism to mid-twentieth century "beat" Zen, and controversy about the merits of different views continues. So many interpretations have been spread around that almost every self-styled Buddhist draws his own picture of the Buddha either as some sort of ideal man or as a symbol for some kind of principle, and has his own private kind of Buddhism. Yet in spite of these somewhat shaky beginnings, Buddhism has already made quite surprising inroads into our culture.
As well as scientists and philosophers, many well known figures in the arts and literature, such as T. S. Eliot, Aldous Huxley, and Hermann Hesse, have become associated with Buddhism, if not always as professed Buddhists, at least as examples of those who have been influenced by its teachings. Scratch a painter or a writer and as likely as not you will find a Buddhist.
In recent decades there has also been a steady increase in the number of Buddhist scholars, of Buddhist societies and study groups, and of books published on Buddhism. Of special importance was the publication in popular editions of Dr. D. T. Suzuki's works.8 These introduced a wider public to Zen and gave fresh impetus to the study of Buddhism in relation to various Western disciplines. For example, some psychoanalysts began to correlate their theories and practices with the methods and insights of Zen,' and philosophers began to draw comparisons between Zen and Western existentialism.
More in the Buddhism and the West series:
...Read more!
Roger Gunther-Jones
It Is probably far too early for anyone to attempt to forecast what lasting effects Buddhism may have on Western culture in general, for its influence so far is only germinal, and further growth and development are not yet assured. However, if we trace the course of Buddhism in the West, noting the changes of Western opinion that have accompanied its progress, we may achieve as a more limited objective an understanding as to why it has been gaining favour among us. What seems to have been taking place, as I shall try to show, is a gradual convergence of two tendencies: on the one hand, the West's increasing understanding and appreciation of the nature of Eastern faiths, such as Buddhism, and on the other, the West's growing disenchantment with its own religious heritage. We now seem to be at the point where these two tendencies show signs of merging into a single movement of religious regeneration, not necessarily Buddhist or even Eastern, though Buddhism and other Eastern faiths may have a part to play In it, but with motivations and aspirations similar to those of Buddhism, and sometimes reaching out for the kind of methodology which Buddhism can supply.
Some of the earliest Western contacts with Buddhism were made by Jesuit missionaries in the sixteenth century. The records of their activities in China and Japan show that in spite of their position as pioneers in the field of Buddhist studies they had a fine appreciation of Buddhism, at any rate as encountered in those countries. Naturally, there were many aspects of the teaching and practice of the Buddhists which were uncongenial to them. Nevertheless, they had a high regard for the "bonzes" (priests), for their spirituality, and for the level of Buddhist culture generally. St. Francis Xavier wrote: "I have spoken with several learned bonzes, especially with one who is held in high esteem here by everyone, as much for his knowledge, conduct and dignity as for his great age of eighty years. His name is Ninshitsu, which in Japanese signifies 'Heart of Truth.' He is among them as a Bishop, and if his name is appropriate, he is indeed a blessed man.... It Is a marvel how good a friend this man is to me."1 He also reported of the Japanese in general that "in their culture, their social usage, and their mores, they surpass the Spaniards so greatly that one must be ashamed to say so."
However, the Jesuit interest in Buddhism was primarily in support of their missionary effort, in which, incidentally, they had some success. Two and a half centuries later, when Schopenhauer speaks out in favour of Buddhism, he does so without condescension and in order to express his agreement with its principles. The consonance of Schopenhauer's views and Buddhist principles is all the more interesting when we remember that in the first instance he arrived at his own viewpoint quite independently of promptings from Buddhist or other Indian sources. He thought he had found in Buddhism support for his own theories and world view. His works contain many passages which either refer directly to Buddhism or can be correlated with it.3 It seemed to him that the Buddhist process of self-realisation and liberation from self-will carried on from the point where his own understanding left off. "I have taught", he said, "what sainthood is, but I myself am no saint." Even though some people, from the vantage point of their own greater knowledge, now criticise his understanding of Buddhism, it is remarkable that he acquired as good an understanding of it as he did with such slender resources, for in his day Pali and Sanskrit scholarship was in its infancy, and very few Buddhist scriptures were available in translation. Perhaps from his own theories he read into Buddhism an emphasis on the will that is not there. The will certainly has an important place in Buddhism, but one that is subordinate to discernment. For Buddhism places more reliance on the natural morality and responses of the enlightened and liberated consciousness than on unenlightened self-coercion. Nevertheless, Charles Muses4 has recently given support to Schopenhauer's views on the will and Buddhism, and shows that the Lankavatara Sutra of the Mahayana canon (a sutra unknown to Schopenhauer) completes Schopenhauer's thought with regard to logic, metaphysics, and ethics. As an example, for purposes of comparison, he quotes from paragraph 71 of
The World as Will and Representation:
"In those who have overcome the world, in whom the will, having attained to perfect self-knowledge, found itself again in all, and then freely denied itself... we shall see that peace which is above all reason, that perfect calm of spirit, that deep rest, that inviolable confidence and serenity, the mere reflection of which in the countenance ... is an entire and certain gospel."
Muses then states that the Lankavatara Sutra lends its confirmation with clarifying detail. Among several examples, the following indicates the kind of confirmation and clarification he had in mind:
"But with the Bodhisattva's attainment [Bodhisattva means 'enlightenment being'] ... there comes the 'turning about' within his deepest seat of consciousness from self-centred egoism to universal compassion for all beings. After experiencing the 'turning about' ... he will be able to enter the realm of consciousness that lies beyond that of the mind-system.
The case of Schopenhauer has been chosen as an early and noteworthy example of the acceptance of Buddhist views as distinct from mere academic interest in them. But there were many other nineteenth century writers, such as Emerson and Tolstoy (in addition, of course, to Buddhist scholars), who contributed to the general awareness of the nature and value of Buddhism and other Eastern faiths. In some ways Tolstoy's views are typical of the period and represent the state of convergence at this time. On the one hand, he repudiated Church-Christianity, vehemently condemning its perversion of the truth and love of power; on the other hand, while welcoming Eastern faiths because they avoided the worst of the Church's vices and crimes and demonstrated that organised Christianity had no exclusive rights where the highest truth is concerned, he could not quite accept their teachings as the equal of Christ's original and unperverted message, as he himself understood it.
By the end of the nineteenth century a far wider circle of scholars and the general public had begun to appreciate the merits of Buddhism as a non-theistic and non-authoritarian religion. By now Buddhism had in fact become widely recognised as a philosophical and ethical system that did not conflict with modern scientific knowledge and common sense. In this it contrasted sharply with the tendency of Western religion to resist the advance of modern knowledge as, for instance, in the attempt to refute the premises of Darwin's theory of Evolution. (A pleasing example of this attempt was the suggestion that God had put fossils into rocks in order to deceive human beings.) The words of T. H. Huxley give expression to a view of Buddhism which seems to have been widely held at this time:
"... a system which knows no God in the Western sense, which denies a soul to man, which counts the belief in immortality a blunder and the hope of it a sin, which refuses any efficacy to prayer and sacrifice, which bids men to look to nothing but their own efforts for salvation, which in its original purity knew nothing of vows of obedience and never sought the aid of the secular arm, yet spread over a considerable moiety of the old world with marvellous rapidity and is still, with whatever base admixture of foreign superstitions, the dominant creed of a large fraction of mankind" (Romanes Lecture, 1893).
Commenting on this view, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan says: "Given the psychological conditions of the time (i.e., in India), the reception of the Buddha's message would be unthinkable, if it were negative. For anyone who is familiar with the religious environment of India it is impossible to look upon a philosophy of negation as the mandate of a religious revival."
Certainly, the late nineteenth century assessment of Buddhism as represented by Huxley's words can now be seen as an expression of the rising tide of positivism and materialism and to that extent misses the principal characteristic of the Buddha's way which in this, as in other respects, is a middle way between extremes, both in theory and in practice, hence neither materialistic nor idealistic, and neither theistic nor atheistic. In some of its aspects Huxley's view can now be cited as a case of Buddhism being admired largely for what it is not. Few scholars today would describe Buddhism in such terms as he used. Nevertheless, in some respects his view can be upheld, and it represents an important stage in the process of convergence between the acceptance of the new religious viewpoint and the rejection of the old.
Naturally, there were many views that differed from those given as examples so far. Some of these testified to the extreme difficulty of shaking off the Christian ethos of one's natural background, even with strenuous conscious efforts. For example, some professed Western Buddhists obstinately insisted, and some still do insist, against all the weight of evidence, in bringing into the teaching a ghost of the Western soul in the form of a "higher self," a kind of immortal entity existing in its own right. A detailed argument on this point would be out of place here. At present it is sufficient to note that whether or not there is in fact anything to which the term "self" can be applied, the way of the Buddha, as already noted, not only avoids this supposition, or hypothesis, but actually teaches quite otherwise. The whole system derives from, and depends for its efficacy on, the negation of anything in experience to which the term "self" could legitimately be applied; if any notion of self arises in consciousness, instantly the question must be asked, "To what or to whom does this notion occur?"
From the earliest European encounters with Buddhism until now, the teaching of the Buddha has been presented to the West in many conflicting forms ranging from extreme nineteenth century scientific Buddhism to mid-twentieth century "beat" Zen, and controversy about the merits of different views continues. So many interpretations have been spread around that almost every self-styled Buddhist draws his own picture of the Buddha either as some sort of ideal man or as a symbol for some kind of principle, and has his own private kind of Buddhism. Yet in spite of these somewhat shaky beginnings, Buddhism has already made quite surprising inroads into our culture.
As well as scientists and philosophers, many well known figures in the arts and literature, such as T. S. Eliot, Aldous Huxley, and Hermann Hesse, have become associated with Buddhism, if not always as professed Buddhists, at least as examples of those who have been influenced by its teachings. Scratch a painter or a writer and as likely as not you will find a Buddhist.
In recent decades there has also been a steady increase in the number of Buddhist scholars, of Buddhist societies and study groups, and of books published on Buddhism. Of special importance was the publication in popular editions of Dr. D. T. Suzuki's works.8 These introduced a wider public to Zen and gave fresh impetus to the study of Buddhism in relation to various Western disciplines. For example, some psychoanalysts began to correlate their theories and practices with the methods and insights of Zen,' and philosophers began to draw comparisons between Zen and Western existentialism.
More in the Buddhism and the West series:
- Love, Compassion and Enlightenment
- In the Emptiness of Self
- Buddhist Religious Fact
- Buddhism in the West
- Religious Buddha Life
...Read more!
Thursday, March 12, 2009
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